


The Knife-Sharpener's Daughter

by thejapanesemapletree



Category: Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Family Fluff, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 35,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3451232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejapanesemapletree/pseuds/thejapanesemapletree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sam, not Samantha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Big Brother Eric, Little Sister Sam

**Author's Note:**

> I am going to apologize in advance for calling Jack's face rude.

**Big Brother Eric, Little Sister Sam**

 

_A drain spout splashing_

_rusty stains on concrete,_

_the taste of doorknobs_

_you kiss before squinting_

_through the musty keyhole_

_at the knife-sharpener's daughter,_

_while across the city_

_the knife-sharpener_

_limps his pushcart_

_with its dinging axles,_

_with its screeching whetstone_

_up wet alleys_

_crying: scissors! knives! axes!_

_-Stuart Dybek-_

.

"… Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes, I am sure! We need to hurry, before Mummy starts to worry."

The bell above the doorway clattered as the pair stepped inside. The dark smell of shaving cream met them immediately, followed by that of chemical gels and musky-sweet shampoo. The slanting of light through the window made hot patches on the tile floor and a vacant leather chair. The seat was kicked back, posing as if it were filled when it was not. An all-encompassing conversation of gossip from every side of the room threaded the air with impassable strings, weaving itself through hair and busy scissors into waiting ears.

"Ah, the Coleman twins!" a man with a brisk, pleasant voice and kind tone laughed at the children standing in his threshold. He rubbed his arms with a cotton towel, the skin thick and velvety with a collection of long grey hair. His mustache was held with a coating of wax; no hair fell from place when he smiled. The sleeves of his white barbers smock were rolled high, to the elbows, the man paying no mind as one slipped a smidgen. His mustache quirked curiously when he stopped before the twins.

"Didn't I trim your hair the other day, Eric?" the man asked. The boy answered by lifting a shoulder.

The youngest twin (but only by eleven minutes she would argue whenever the topic arose) was the one to address the man vocally.

"Good day, Mr Michaels," she said with a fine embellishment of honey and properness. "How are you this afternoon?"

Pleased and charmed, the man answered with a smile that he was well. The girl continued the polite small-talk, making love with her words, comforting the man to where she wanted him. He, finally, asked:

"Why did come all the way here? It wasn't just to talk to me, was it?"

Eric looked to his sister and waited for her answer. The girl had a mischievous and clever glare in her hazel eyes, mouth upturned. It was the same expression she had after she had convinced their mother they were going out to buy sweets with their pocket money, a keen ruse, the success of the enacted plan joyful to her. She made sure to bat her thick eyelashes before she continued.

"Mr Michaels, would you be ever so kind and cut my hair?" she cooed this, with the upmost sweetness.

The man laughed jovially at her request, a frown pinching her mouth at the reaction.

"If you want a trim you should go to the beauty salon down the road," he joked in good-spirits.

They had attempted this first, only to be met with refusal. The girl even teared up to try and persuade them, giving her best show of heartbrokenness. Being mothers, the women beauticians knew this tact, remaining staunch

' _You have such pretty hair, why would you want to cut it all off?'_

 _Because I hate it_ , she wanted to scream to these unforgiving women, but said nothing, instead taking her brother's arm and muscling him out the door and away from that place.

Mr Michaels was her last hope.

"But I want a haircut like Eric's," she clarified, still feeling like she had the upper hand. "I want it short."

"It is already short," he told her, indicating the bobbed haircut she had done up in curls. "What would your mother think if you made it shorter?"

"Oh, she doesn't mind," the girl lied easily in a way that matched her young age. "She even gave me money for it."

A pile of bills her and her brother had been hoarding for weeks was produced. The flashing proof of money piqued the man's interest. He was given the stack of pounds and counted it quickly, a thoughtful look crossing his face. His mustache veered sidelong again.

"Well..." he began. "All the money is here. If you really want it that short, I don't see why not."

A glittering brilliance illuminated the girls face. She thanked the man thoroughly, Mr Michaels laughing at her excitement. She then turned to her brother and became elated with him. Eric smiled when she took his hands haphazardly, leaning forward, eyes wide and staring into his own. They giggled together childishly.

"Come along, little lady," Mr Michaels ushered to one of the barber chairs. "I'll get you cleaned up straight away."

.

" _Samantha Jennifer Cole_ _man_ _!"_

A cold knot of dread curled in her stomach. It was strangely sickening, for the icy fear delivered by the raised voice was paired with the fiery and violent bristles of hearing her full name (more-so her first name). Panicked, the girl dashed from the parlor.

 _'You look like you could be identical twins!'_ Mr Michaels commented teasingly when he finished shearing the girl's neck.

However, the twins could not see it. They knew how similar they appeared, even being of opposite genders, but could not recognize themselves in each other. They saw their matching golden-brown hair and eyes and round faces and fairy-saddle noses, but Sam saw her brother's single check-mark eyebrow and fickle cowlick and could not believe they looked anything alike, while Eric saw his sister's black eyelashes and sinistral ways before he saw himself.

Sam simply grinned sweetly, sporting a haircut that gave her a springing confidence until she arrived home. That was when her mother shrieked at her as soon as she entered the door, startling the girl into scurrying off.

Her escape was foiled when she sharply turned into the hallway and smacked into something. She bounced to the floor with a grunt, dizzied by the impact. The battered object, (or person, rather) lowered itself with her, speaking.

"Where are you going in such a hurry, Eric, m'boy?" the father inquired, picking up the girl snapping herself back with a shake of the head. She grimaced at the question.

"I'm not Eric, I'm Sam," she informed him, the man raising a quizzical brow. He was burrowed against when another roar sounded.

" _Samantha! Samantha!"_

The young mother appeared in the hallway, hair frizzling, cheeks plum-colored. Eric followed behind to prevent the death of his sister if needed.

"Oh, Samantha, what ever did you do to your _hair?"_ she cried. The girl was shielded by her father's husky arm when she began to shiver and sniffle in the most pitiful and intentional way.

"I didn't like it. Long hair is annoying. It was ugly. I hated it," Sam said the excuses into her father's shoulder, the tartness of the words still clear.

"I wasn't even very _long,"_ her mother tried to argue. Her father was more sympathetic, rubbing her back and shushing her, the man ensnared in the trap she laid before him.

"It is alright, duck," he soothed. "I like it, I think it looks nice."

For good measure the girl murmured a final snivel, her eyes glossy with unshed tears as she looked up at her father. A stray hand rubbed at her eye.

"Really, Papa? You really think so?"

He boomed with laughter. "It looks better than when you found the kitchen shears and cut your pigtails off!"

Sam acted the part and giggled happily at the silly memory from when she was only two. She gave her father a squeeze before being set down, the girl's mother scowling at her defeat. She spun and thundered off, hissing.

"With the plane ride within a _week_..."

The twins left to their own devices after a fatherly pat on the head each, Eric leaned towards Sam, a sly smile crossing his face.

"You're despicable."

The girl smirked and touched her brother's cheek, holding it almost flirtatiously.

" _I know,"_ she whispered.

She was a manipulative little girl, at least when she wanted to be, for her sex made it easy.

.

"Sam, wake up."

The girl shifted, coughed, and rolled over, eyes opening to find her brother. The bolly of fern leaves she was under was pushed aside, Eric shaking her and waiting for her to rise. She at first wondered where his jersey went, then remembered it was underneath her, her own cushioned under her head. (Or was it the other way around? She would have to look at the cross-stitched letters on the collar to see.)

"Something is being done."

Before she could ask what ever he meant, a low, guttural noise carried through the forest. It startled a tropical bird of an unknown name into squawking and fluttering off. The sound was enough to get Sam sitting upright over the wide leaves.

"Come on, let's see what's being sorted."

The twins took a jersey each before picking their way through the jungle. They were more cautious than the night before when they ran hell-bent through the ripping creepers and angry Pacific rain. They, eventually, found shelter against the angled roots of a tree and under a plot of ferns, remaining there until morning.

Pausing, Sam plucked the limb of a clingy undergrowth from her stocking. Mr and Mrs Coleman decided long ago Sam could not be trusted in ladies clothing unsupervised, beginning when she was young and hung upside-down in a tree, showing the old lady next door a full view of her pants. The ruling was solidified when Sam chose to fight one of the neighborhood boys for calling her Samantha and gave the child much the same view. She only wore skirted clothing while at school in her pinafore uniform or for formal occasions, her parents determined to preserve the last scrap of her feminine dignity.

"Look! What's that?"

The siblings exited the jungle onto the beach. The sun was high and hot, the heat reflecting in waves off the sand, the crisp and damp shade of the forest missed as soon as it was left. The shimmering presence of the heat and vacillating reflection of white strings of light upon the ocean hurt to look at for too long a time, the twins left with memories of the glare in their vision afterwards. They looked down the strip of golden sand, beyond the torrid façade, viewing a raised area between the frothing surf and idle jungle. Dark and moving figures congealed upon the platform under the arched and fallen palms. Shadow and person were seen as one.

The fierce note sounded again.

"Eric!"

"Let's go!"

A race began, the two tearing down the beach towards the platform. Sand kicked into their shoes as they tried to scramble passed one another, neither gaining ground on the other, even as the final league was completed. The ambled up the platform together, breathing hitched, sweat prematurely coating their faces. They collapsed in unison on the grass of the platform. Breathless, they grinned, turning to the boy before them with a shell to his lips.

Were Sam not so young and were she knowledgeable about the aesthetic appeal of attractive older men, she might have found him handsome. The dancing light mirrored from the pool below and soft shade from the palms gave him an almost god-like appearance. He was fair, both in skin and hair, his tresses flicking points of water from the tips. His raised arms and visible collarbone were artfully shaped with the beginnings of a wonderful tone of muscle. His vision lowered momentarily, aqua-colored eyes taking notice of the twins at his feet.

Another boy leaned down to them, light skimming over his round spectacles. He was plump in a hindering and displeasing way. Sam and Eric were wary of his likeability immediately, feeling a prickle of guard as he inched closer to be heard over the blaring noise of the fair boy.

"What's yer name?" he asked politely.

"Sam."

"Eric."

"Sam, Eric, Sam, Eric..." he repeated to himself while indicating his finger between the two. Somewhere in the middle, and reasonably so, he got himself backwards, telling Sam she was Eric and Eric he was Sam. The twins shook their heads to stop him, pointing at each other and grinning.

"No, _I'm_ Sam-"

"-and I'm Eric."

The platform of boys erupted in laugher at the mistake. The boy lowered his head and flushed, glasses flashing. The humor of the synchronization of Sam and Eric was a thing that would not be comical were they not twins, and made them unique among the group of many.

Eventually, the trumpeting noise was ceased entirely, the fair boy sitting with the shell lowered. His cheeks were ruddy from the effort and he hunched over himself with long, deep breaths. The laughter faded after the final bugling. Silence fell. They waited.

When the boy raised himself again he did not look at the crowd, instead along the water's edge. The length and intensity of his gaze drew all attention to the beach, Sam and Eric glancing over their shoulders.

A dark cloud was moving along the sand, in-step, to a certain marching rhythm. As it passed the wall of hazing heat, cloaks could be seen. Every boy in the procession was dressed in a lengthy cloak of black with a frill collar and square hat. Crosses were pinned to their caps and on the left of their cloaks, all silver except for the golden embellishments of the leading boy. The group moved wearily, fighting to keep line with one another in the shifting sand. They halted with a sharp order from the leader.

The boy himself left his party on the sand alone, hurrying up the platform with his cloak catching the air and sweeping in an almost villainous manner. He stopped at the top, blinking blindly with the sun in his eyes.

"Where's the man with the trumpet?" he demanded.

The fair boy who noticed his troubles replied.

"There is no man with a trumpet. Only me."

His face pinched up as he peered at the boy who spoke. His already unattractive face made the ugly expression selfish, rude to view. His nose was sloped to a point with the nostrils exposed, lips thin and crinkly in shape. A shock of ginger hair paled his already fragile skin, freckles plentiful. The promise of sunburn was already poised on the bridge of his nose and cheekbones.

His sneer was awful.

"Isn't there a ship, then?" he asked with a harsh impatience. "Isn't there a man here?"

"No," the boy with the shell answered coolly, "We're having a meeting. Come and join in."

The idea of sitting under the shade of the palm trees excited the group of choir boys. They shifted from their perfect rows.

The leader shouted them back to order, "Choir! Stand still!"

With hopes dashed they reformed their formation, flushed and dejected looks upon all of them. They wavered.

"But, Merridew. Please, Merridew... can't we?"

One member fell forward and the entire group scattered. Sam thought it funny to watch six boys haul one fainted child onto the platform, setting him below a standing tree. Merridew, the leader, his mouth set in a stark line, watched the process.

"All right then. Sit down. Let him alone."

"But Merridew."

"He's always throwing a faint," Merridew said with a brush of his words. "He did in Gib; and Addis; and at matins over the precentor."

The reminders brought a collection of snickers from the choir. Now in the shade and resting upon a fallen trunk they had much cheerier spirits, watching the fair boy and his sizeable shell with interest. The fat boy shielded himself with the fair boy, obviously intimidated by the choir party. He cleaned his glasses nervously.

"Aren't there any grownups?" Merridew continued with the fair-hair boy.

"No."

Merridew perched upon a log and looked with distaste to the group around him. Eric felt a spark of contempt when the boy appeared to raise his lip in disgust as he looked at Sam. Sam did not see what was not there and did not happen.

"Then we'll have to look after ourselves," he supposed.

"That's why Ralph made a meeting," the fat boy with the spectacles said about the fair boy. "So as we can decide what to do. We've heard names. That's Johnny-" he made motion to a young boy of six- "Those two- they're twins, Sam n' Eric. Which is Eric-? You? No-you're Sam-"

"I'm Sam," she provided savorlessly.

"'n I'm Eric," he finished.

The siblings looked at each other, dislike for the fat boy readable on their faces, judgement passed. They could not empathize with his struggles.

"We'd better all have names," Ralph cleared up, "so I'm Ralph."

"We got most names," the fat boy said. "Got 'em just now."

"Kid's names," Merridew said hatefully. "Why should I be Jack? I'm Merridew."

"That would be very troublesome..." Eric leaned and whispered to his sister, indicating the inconvenience of being called the same name. She nodded.

"Then," the boy with glasses went on, "that boy- I forget-"

"You're talking too much," Jack Merridew said, feeling threatened. "Shut up, Fatty."

The laughter began.

"He's not Fatty," argued Ralph, "his real name's Piggy!"

"Piggy!"

"Piggy!"

"Oh, Piggy!" the twins shrieked, falling back into laughter. The platform was a cruel storm of joined laughter, even the littlest following the tease. Hurt, Piggy lowered his head, polishing his glasses.

After the humor was slated the introductions in the choir commenced, starting with kind-faced Maurice, and then the boy with a secluded air named Roger, then Bill and Robert and Harold and Henry. The boy who had fainted, and who looked rather cute once he smiled, sat up and said his name was Simon. His black eyes were warm and skin a pretty, dark shade.

Not missing a beat, Jack spoke.

"We've got to decide about being rescued."

The words began a catalyst. Joy was forgotten and the situation remembered. All became painfully aware of their distance from home, the littlest realizing the absence of their mother and fathers. One reacted by crying he wanted to go home.

Eric took his sister's hand and squeezed it, trying to communicate that they would be all right, no matter what. Even though the gesture was uncertain and Sam did not need assurance, she appreciated the thoughtfulness.

"Shut up," Ralph told the disturbed crowd. He held the cream-colored shell above his head. "Seems we ought to have a chief to decide things."

"I ought to be chief," Jack declared with a proper and pompous motion to himself, "because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp."

A hum came from the platform. The boy felt he had triumphed.

"Well then, I-"

He paused. The hesitation allowed the choir boy named Roger to speak, his voice plain and severe.

"Let's have a vote."

"Yes!"

"Vote for chief!"

"Let's vote-"

The utterances of agreement made the idea of a vote very grand. The question then became who to vote for, in which the single boys seemed to concur collectively upon one. Piggy had shown intelligence, and Jack experienced leadership, but Ralph was something else entirely. His age and size and comely features set him above others, as well as his already partial control over the platform of boys with his ability to bring them together. The conch was a powerful thing only he had, and that everyone admired.

"Him with the shell."

"Ralph! Ralph!"

"Let him be chief with the trumpet-thing."

Sam and Eric took to seconding this point, the twins announcing that Ralph should be the leader. The fair-hair boy raised his hand and silence fell: an already chiefly command.

"All right. Who wants Jack for chief?"

The group of black-cloaked boys sighed, hands raised in loyalty to their head boy.

"Who wants me?"

The twins shot their hands in the air instantly, the others quick to follow. Piggy was the only hesitant one, raising his hand after a conflicting moment. Ralph counted the votes.

"I'm chief then."

The crowd sounded a multitude of cheers and applause. The choir celebrated as well, their leader blushing and gapping at his horrible defeat. He stood to voice his abhorrence, then thought better of it, sitting weathervane-straight with tangible loathing in his posture.

Not wanting to leave him completely to shame, Ralph turned to him.

"The choir belongs to you, of course."

"They could be the army-"

"Or hunters-"

"They could be-"

Ralph shushed the crowd. Calm and his normal coloring returned to Jack's face, at ease with the sense of control he was given.

"Jack's in charge of the choir," said Ralph. "They can be- what do you want them to be?"

"Hunters."

The two then smiled at one another, Jack showing his thankfulness and ability to express a friendly nature. He was not utterly dreadful.

.

As his first verdict as chief, Ralph decided to take a triad of boys and climb the rocky mountain to see if they were indeed stranded on an island. Piggy wished to go ever so, but Ralph denied him the right, taking with him instead Jack and Simon. The meeting was adjourned and the party set off.

The others were left to explore the area around the platform of palms. The littlest soon found a close grove of fruits and took to climbing and eating, washing their faces with the sweet flesh. Others removed their shoes and played at the waterline, some finding shade in the jungle to nap. Sam and Eric sat by the tranquil pool beside the platform and rested their bare feet in the warm water.

Sam began to notice something was wrong when, slowly but certainly, boys began to lose their clothing. It began with their jacket or jersey, then went their shoes and stockings, then their dress shirts and tie, ending with a removal of their trousers and pants. They laughed and ran, playing naked in the surf.

Sam was kicking her feet in the water when Maurice came beside the pool. He said nothing to the twins, pulling off his stockings and collared shirt. In a single fluid motion his trousers were down and lower half stark and bare.

A disbelieving and mortified pinkness came to the girl's face. She had no real objection to the male body, no disgust with its form, but the cultured part of her knew to wrongness of this action. She knew it was unacceptable for females and males with no relation to undress in front of one another, to show themselves in such a way. Her redness came from second-hand embarrassment for Maurice and from her own embarrassment for having to see him in such a personal way.

Eric's temper flared. A noise of protest came from him, an angry heat rising in his face. He gripped the sand.

"Have some decency!" Eric cried to the boy swimming in the pool. Maurice spun around, a confused look upon his features. Eric scowled at his naïve audacity.

"Let's leave," Eric said shorty, pulling his sister to stand. The twins collected their scattered clothing, leaving a puzzled Maurice in the pool to watch them depart.

Eric became increasingly agitated as they moved along the beach and saw more and more uncovered boys. He saw it as an incredible rudeness and disrespect towards his sister, who was trying her best to hide her face from the view. Eric stopped at a tree and sat, facing the jungle and steaming.

"It is indecent, immortal," Eric said after Sam had settled beside him in the shade. "They shouldn't undress in front of girls."

Sam nodded accordance, then decided to think upon the statement. At the airport and during the plane ride she had paid little mind to the others on the trip, much less the gender demography. As she thought back to the faces and voices she remembered from the platform meeting she realized something. There were no girls: only her, a girl.

This cognizance did not explain Maurice's behavior, however. In a reasonable situation he would have asked the girl to leave or left on his pants to swim or not gone in at all. The circumstance bewildered the girl. Boys only undressed and ran dishabille among one another, such as when they went on adventures to swim in the creek. They would never act so careless in front of a female.

It was at once she understood. Maurice and the others did not parade naked before a girl intentionally. They showed themselves casually even while around Sam because they believed she was male, like her brother. This also explained Piggy mixing them up, for he saw the twins with the same haircut and facial features and outfit as identical, both in gender and appearance.

"… Eric," Sam said after a heavy moment of thought and understanding, "they think I'm a boy."

" _What?"_ he choked, gapping at her. "How do you know that? That isn't possible."

"That is why Maurice undressed in front of me and why that boy, Piggy, muddled us up. They think I'm like you, that I'm a boy."

Eric said nothing, shaking his head. His brows furrowed for a moment, the boy waiting and sorting his thoughts.

"That's not right. We need to tell them you're not."

"… What if we don't?"

"Then they will continue to be naked in front of you," Eric said, nose scrunching at the idea.

"But they will not have an excuse to leave me out of their games," Sam persisted. She was reminded of the times she would go with her brother to the park and be butted out of a game of football due to her sex. It was unfair being excluded on a basis she could not control. Eric would object and try to persuade the players, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. They would play together or sit on the sidelines together: there was no compromise.

"Then they cannot think of me as any different from everyone else."

"How will you bathe?"

"I won't," Sam grinned, her brother hissing at the vulgar notion.

"I can wash in my clothes. Or we can go in the jungle, I am sure there is a river somewhere."

Eric looked at his sister incredulously. She batted her eyelashes, golden eyes innocent and begging. She giggled as he wavered.

"… Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yes."

"Even though you will be surrounded by nudity."

"I am sure I can live with it."

"Sam..."

"Please, _big brother_ , please?"

That cracked him. He released an exasperated breath, finally nodding his approval with reluctance. Sam cheered at her victory, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing.

"You are the best big brother _ever!"_

Eric grunted, mumbling under his breath.

"You're _despicable."_

She patted his head sympathetically, knowing this fully well.

"I know."

The girl was finally given power over how she was viewed in society and it was wonderfully liberating.


	2. The Red Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sam learns she is on the Island of Fuckboys and contemplates fratricide.

**The Red Beast**

It was well into the afternoon when the three boys returned from the mountain. The twins had moved deeper into the jungle to hide from the scorching sun while the others ran along the beach and soon became red and burnt. Eric, who had not slept as well as his sister the night before, was napping while Sam was building a castle in the sand when the conch was called. The girl leaned out into the sunlight and saw the figures atop the platform. She awoke her brother and they were off.

They sat to the left of Ralph in the headwind of the sun's beams as the chief told the crowd about how it was apparent they were on an uninhabited island. Jack was quick to add that they found pigs on the island as well. They had seen a piglet ensnared in the creepers and Jack had wanted to slaughter the creature with his knife, but the animal had untangled itself before he was able to. He was determined to get it next time.

The idea of a killable source of red meat sent a buzzing hubbub through the crowd. Jack thrust his knife into one of the palm trees and the boys stilled. His look was menacing and chilling.

"So you see," Ralph cleared his throat and continued, "we need hunters to get us meat. And another thing."

The shell rocked on his knees as he looked around at the meeting party.

"There aren't any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves."

Sam and Eric nodded in unison, everyone humming in agreement before becoming silent.

"And another thing," Ralph said again. "We can't have everybody talking at once. We'll have to have 'Hands up' like at school." He raised the white shell from his knees. "Then I'll give him the conch."

"Conch?" one of the ignorant little ones questioned.

"That's what this shell's called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking."

"But-"

"Look-"

"And he won't be interrupted. Except by me." The chief stated with finality.

Jack shot upright.

"We'll have rules!" he declared with enthusiasm, as if he were chief himself. "Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks 'em-"

"Whee-oh!"

"Wacco!"

"Bong!"

"Doink!" Eric cheered while caught in the excitement. Sam gave him a questioning look, taking the words as boyish silliness and not true punishments for wrongdoings.

When the vigor had cooled, it was discovered Piggy had taken possession of the conch. Jack settled beside Ralph and the boy smiled at him. Piggy took a moment, blinking at his spectacles and cleaning them.

"You're hindering Ralph," he scolded the group as a whole. "You're not letting him get to the most important thing."

He paused to let his reprimands sink in.

"Who knows we're here? Eh?"

"They knew at the airport," A choir boy said.

"The man with a trumpet-thing-" Continued another.

"My dad," said Ralph.

Piggy shook his head, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Nobody knows where we are. Perhaps they knew where we was going to; and perhaps not. But they don't know where we are 'cos we never got there." The boy was sweating and unsteady on his feet by this time. He sat uneasily on a log and Ralph returned the conch to his knees. Ralph spoke.

"That's what I was going to say, when you all, all..." He took a moment to find what to say. "The plane was shot down in flames. Nobody knows where we are. We may be here a long time."

No one made a reply. When Sam found Eric's hand his fingers were cold, nervously so. She rubbed life back into his digits with her thumb, soothing the boy as well. He was the one who needed assured more than her.

"So we may be here a long time." he repeated,

The silence remained solemn. And yet the fair-hair boy smiled, his locks flowing with a zephyr of wind.

"But this is a good island," he insisted. "We- Jack, Simon, and me- we climbed the mountain. It's wizard. There's food and drink, and-"

"Rocks-" Jack said.

"Blue flowers-" Simon added.

His aliment somewhat dismissed, Piggy pointed to the conch in Ralph's lap and silenced the boys. Ralph nodded his thanks to his companion.

"While we're waiting we can have a good time on this island."

He motioned with his arms, trying to express the adventurous prospect of their situation.

"It's like a book."

The wonderful perspective conveyed, the rules were forgotten and voices spoke out.

"Treasure Island-"

"Swallows and Amazons-"

"Coral Island-"

Sam wanted to say her favorite book, but knew it would be nothing like _Frankenstein_.

"Moby Dick!" Eric said just to be heard. She huffed.

Ralph gestured to the conch and stilled the meeting.

"This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun."

Jack held his arms out for the shell and Ralph gave it to him. He then faced the crowd, now appearing serious.

"There's pigs," he said simply. "There's food; and bathing water in that little stream along there- and everything. Didn't anyone find anything else?"

The conch was presented back to Ralph when Jack sat down. The group of boys glanced around at one another, seeing if one of them would step forward and disclose something he found. Sam thought this would have been the ideal time to announce her gender if she wished to do so, embarrassing Maurice and the others who went unclothed utterly. But it was ultimately her choice and she said nothing.

The quiet was disturbed by the sound of struggling. The littlest boys were shuffling around in the grass, shoving about one of their own. The small boy was shoved from the protection of the group with fierce resistance. He was incredibly tiny, probably one of the tiniest on the island, a side of his face disfigured by a rosy birthmark. The boy was shivering, afraid of the spotlight upon him. He mumbled softly and stared at his feet.

"All right," Ralph said as the boy scooted forward, attempting a tender tone, "come on then."

The little boy's head shot up abruptly. He was tense, prepared to flee if needed.

"Speak up!"

Sam smiled at the little boy trying his best to do what he must like a big kid. His hands reached out hesitantly for the conch, only to be drawn back instantly as laughter sounded. He trembled then, collapsing into woeful tears.

Sam felt sorry for the boy, she truly did, sorry that his weakness was teased publically. She soon noticed her brother was hooting with laughter beside her and became enraged. She punched his shoulder with, nearly, all her strength, causing Eric to yelp at the unexpected hit.

"You mustn't taunt the weak," she hissed, pushing her brother's head and forcing him to lean sidelong. "They hate themselves enough."

"Now I'm going to have a bruise..." Eric whined, nursing his injured shoulder. He did not totally understand why his sister was upset and so did not address it. Sam gave him a dirty glare and pushed his head again.

Piggy, ever understanding Piggy, came to the poor boy's rescue.

"Let him have the conch!" he shouted above the awful laughter. "Let him have it!"

The shell was given to the boy, but he was now struck dumb by the unbelievable cruelty of the crowd. Piggy moved to aid him, squatting in the grass and having the boy whisper what he wished to say. Piggy lowered his head and his glasses flashed.

"He wants to know what you are going to do about the snake-thing."

The chief laughed openly, the others as well. Eric suppressed his humor, feeling his sister watching and waiting for him to dare to move. The little boy let out a whimper of pain.

"Tell us about the snake-thing," Ralph invited with a joking tone that showed his superiority.

The boy whispered to Piggy and Piggy spoke.

"Now he says it was a beastie."

"Beastie?"

"A snake-thing. Ever so big. He saw it."

"Where?"

"In the woods."

A breeze glided over the platform and graced the group with a chill.

"You couldn't have a beastie, a snake-thing, on an island this size," Ralph tried to rationalize kindly. "You only get them in big countries, like Africa, or India."

There was the humming of confirmation and nodding of heads.

"He says the beastie came in the dark."

"Then he couldn't see it!"

The crowd turned on the little boy and jeered again.

"Did you hear that? Says he saw the thing in the dark-"

"He still says he saw a beastie. It came and went away again an' came back and wanted to eat him-"

"He was dreaming."

It was then Ralph continued to laugh with the others. The oldest boys were assured there was no beastie and continued their good spirits, while the littlest were doubtful. They we ready to believe one of their own if needed.

Sam released a heavy sigh. She leaned her elbow on her knee, agitated by the outright brutality around her. She thought the little boy with the rose-colored birthmark did not have to worry about a snake eating him: the other boys were doing that already.

"He must have had a nightmare. Stumbling about among all those creepers."

This was an understandable conclusion. Everyone knew about nightmares and their power.

The little boy confided to Piggy again.

"He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?"

"But there isn't a beastie!"

"He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back tonight?"

"But there isn't a beastie!"

Ralph was beginning to become exasperated and the fresh tension was palpable. He looked at the little boy shut in on himself like how a father would looking at his son fibbing about the clearly broken window: with heartfelt disappointment.

Jack snatched the conch and held it close.

"Ralph's right of course," he said with an odd arrogance. "There isn't a snake-thing. But if there was a snake we'd hunt it and kill it. We're going to hunt pigs to get meat for everybody. And we'll look for the snake too-"

"But there isn't a snake!"

"We'll make sure when we go hunting."

"But there isn't a beast!"

Ralph was irate now. His reason was continuously shunned in favor of fantasies that the imaginary snake could be hunted like a pig. His irritation became so great that he sat straight and rang his point outwards.

"But I tell you there isn't a beast!"

The platform was quiet.

With a sigh, the hostility thawed from Ralph's frame. He reclaimed the conch from Jack and grinned delightedly at the crowd. He spoke tactfully to uplift spirits.

"Now we come to the most important thing. I've been thinking. I was thinking while we were climbing the mountain. And on the beach just now. This is what I thought. We want to have fun. And we want to be rescued."

That was true for all and sacrosanct. The unity of the group-wide want caused a gentle clamor, chasing Ralph of his thoughts. He had to hesitate.

"We want to be rescued; and of course we shall be rescued."

All knew the assurance was almost entirely empty, but agreed with it all the same. Sam showed her brother that she forgave him for his previous mishap by elbowing his side playfully.

"Just think!" she encouraged. "When we get back we can have Mummy's peach cobbler."

Eric thought upon that and said, "I think I'd rather have Black Forrest Cake."

Sam made a displeased face. She'd always hated cherries.

The conch was waved and the meeting calmed by order of the chief.

"My father's in the Navy. He said there aren't any unknown islands left. He says the Queen has a big room full of maps and all the islands in the world are drawn there. So the Queen's got a picture of this island."

Hopefulness reverberated among the boys.

"And sooner or later a ship will put in here. It might even be Daddy's ship. So you see, sooner or later, we shall be rescued."

When he finished applause suddenly arose. Ralph flushed as the others admired the proof of his chief-like ways, Jack grinning wolfishly and Piggy having an approving gleam in his eyes.

The chief, however, was not completely resolved.

"Shut up! Wait! Listen!" he ordered, raising the conch. He brushed a hand through his falling hair as the meeting waited eagerly.

"There's another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire."

"A fire! Make a fire!" the boys supported.

Many boys jumped from their seats at the prospect. The meeting and rules forgotten in the excitement, Jack took the forefront.

"Come on! Follow me!"

Eric pulled Sam to her feet before she could even decide if she wanted to object, grinning wildly.

"Let's go!" he insisted, tugging his sister along. "I bet we can get the biggest log!"

Any and all hesitancies the girl might have thought of having were extinguished as she joined her brother and the others in their mad dash towards the mountain. The activity of building a pyre to burn as a group appeared very entertaining, even more so because it held the promise of a possible rescue behind it. The twins leapt into the creepers and disappeared with the others.

Forgotten and alone on the platform, Piggy could be heard muttering to Ralph.

"Like kids! Acting like a crowd of kids!"

.

The path Sam and Eric picked up the mountain was gravelly and lined with the broken shells of rocks pink like bubble gum. The ascent was quick and the summit soon reached; the others were racing about, restless and inspired.

The chief soon joined them. He boomed like a foghorn with his hands around his mouth to go to the lee side of the mountain. Down the steep slope was a good picking of likely firewood, an area where trees died while saplings and fell from the shallow soil.

It took a moment to find the safest route down, and even then some of the boys slid part of the way. Many of the trunks were decaying and unusable, some soft almost-soil that creepers and fungi placed roots inside. Sam and Eric found many woodlice and the burrows they made in the wood when they tore back bark from rotten logs.

With a bit of searching, the twins found a solid wood block.

"Eric!" Sam exclaimed when she pulled on the log and it remained intact. "I think this one's good! Help me lift it up."

They first fought the object free from the creepers, then squatting to raise and carry the trunk. Eric struggled with his portion while Sam, with a great heave, uplifted the fat thickness of timber over her shoulder. For someone of her size, age, and gender, she was exceptionally strong.

"S-Sam," Eric stammered in a strained manner, red in the face and breathless from the effort of trying to hoist something he could not. "I c-can't."

"Of course," she scolded although not hatefully. Even with her holding up half the weigh he still toiled.

Sam decided to take the log up the mountain herself. With short, powerful bursts of tugging she began to wrestle the trunk up the incline, moving slow and with minuscule progression.

Many witnesses of the first promising wood piece came to the aid of the siblings. There was Ralph and Jack and Roger and Maurice and Simon, each dipping under the partially raised log and perching an area on their shoulders. The girl wanted to appreciate the help, but was peeved that they wanted credit for the beginning of the fire and did not believe in her ability to transport the log herself.

"You mustn't carry something so heavy alone," Simon said warmly behind her. His voice was rich, sweet and melodic, the voice of one who would be thought to sing prettily. It was soft and pleasing to hear, contradicting Jack's harsh, sharp tone that felt like a wire brush over the skin.

Sam nodded once and said nothing.

At the peak the trunk was rolled to the designated fire-spot. A gathering of sticks was piled upon it, the other children finding smaller trinkets of fuel to use. Sam checked that everything was to her liking before descending the mountain to find her brother.

Eric had already dug a branch from the surrounding undergrowth. The branch was precariously lengthy, stretching many meters long.

"Sam," he called for her attention, ushering her over. "You get the branch, I'll get the leaves."

"Leaves?" she questioned. Indeed under the shelter of the object was a basket of dried leaves. Eric scooped the heap to his chest, standing and grinning, showing the gap in his teeth that matches his sister's.

"Every fire need dry brush!"

And so the pair walked together, one with a colossal branch over her head and the other with crumbling leaves in his arms. The little ones who had tired of working to build a fire and taken to consuming fruit watched in awe as the older child with the great branch passed them. The girl was smirking all the while, making a show by tossing the wood onto the growing quantity with a fancy over-chucking. She was not outdone when Ralph and Jack crashed their own log beside hers. Eric tucked the leaves against the stock carefully.

When the cluster of firewood was finished, it rested taller even than Jack or Maurice and wide in diameter. There was a pause of rest before unease rose.

No one knew how to start the fire.

Jack suggested the rubbing of two sticks while Ralph asked about for matches. Roger had learned by the way of using an arrow and bow, but they had neither. In the commotion of trying to find the means of igniting the fire Piggy came ambling forward, conch under one arm. He was sweating and his breathes were raspy and labored. He took a moment to compose himself.

"Piggy!" Ralph shouted to him. "Have you got any matches?"

The boy shook his head, glasses flashing in the light.

"My!" he admired. "You've made a big heap, haven't you?"

Suddenly, Jack pointed and yelled.

"His specs-use them as burning glasses!"

Cued, the boys around Piggy jumped on him. The boy cried, shrill with panic.

"Here-let me go!"

He was ignored as Jack plucked the glasses from his face and walked away

"Mind out! Give 'em back! I can hardly see! You'll break the conch!"

Ralph moved the blinded Piggy away from the pile and out of the way.

"Stand out of the light."

The fair-hair boy was given the spectacles and he crouched down. He experimented with the refraction of the evening light in the glass, finding the angle it concentrated the most. He focused the light upon the dry leaves.

Almost instantly smoke appeared. It trailed into Ralph's face and made him cough, Jack taking to kneeling and feeding the spark with oxygen while Ralph leaned back. A tiny flame pointed upwards, soon to spread throughout the jumble of leaves. A consuming cheer was sounded as the flames gnawed gratefully at the presented wood.

"My specs!" Piggy wailed. "Give me my specs!"

Ralph stood and handed the unhappy boy his desired spectacles. Piggy placed them on his nose and glowered.

"Jus' blurs, that's all. Hardly see my hand-"

Eric took Sam by the arm and swept her into the crowd. The boys were dancing, celebrating the cumulative effort they put into the fire. The flames and heat were incredible now. The warmth of the fire torched for a large radius, the flames licking skyward. The logs sunk and collapsed as they burned.

Ralph was heard over the singing fire.

"More wood! All of you get more wood!"

By direction of the chief it was done. Sam found another hardy log to add, the wood thrust atop the fire, creating an exploding rain of sparks. She laughed as they stung her forearms.

Tinder of every size by nearly every boy- for the littlest favored fruit over construction- was throw into the gluttonous fire. A heavy wind was cupping over the mountain, pushing the flame sidelong and arching the blazing heat down into the forest of rotting wood. One side of the fire now cool the group rested there, satisfied. Sam pushed her brother away as he tried to rub his grubby hands on her.

"That was no good."

Heed was given to Ralph. Roger sat upright, spitting to the side.

"What d'you mean?"

"There wasn't any smoke. Only flame."

Piggy spoke from his place among the gumball rocks.

"We haven't made a fire, what's any use. We couldn't keep a fire like that going, not if we tried."

"A fat lot you tried," Jack challenged with an ugly expression. "You just sat."

"We used his specs," Simon provided. His face was cloaked with soot. "He helped that way."

"I got the conch," Piggy reminded them irritably. "You let me speak!"

"The conch doesn't count on top of the mountain, so you shut up."

"I got the conch in my hand."

"Put on green branches," Maurice said observantly to divert the topic. "That's the best way to make smoke."

"I got the conch-"

Jack snarled like an animal.

"You shut up!"

Piggy dipped his head and flushed. Ralph quickly took control of the situation by commanding the shell and holding it aloft. His eyes were hard like topaz.

"We've got to have special people for looking after the fire," he began, fiercely. "Any day there may be a ship out there, and if we have a signal going they'll come and take us off. And another thing. We ought to have more rules. Where the conch is, that's a meeting. The same up here as down there."

The crowd consented to this order. Piggy thought to speak and opened his mouth, but saw Jack's glare and said nothing. Jack motioned for the conch and was allowed it, his black thumb leaving a charcoal smear on its blemish-free surface.

"I agree with Ralph. We've got to have more rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything. So we've got to do the right things."

He faced Ralph.

"Ralph, I'll split up my choir-my hunters, that is- into groups, and we'll be responsible for keeping the fire going-"

Applause echoed from the group of boys. Jack grinned at his new-found good favor, lifting the conch for stillness.

"We'll let the fire burn out now. Who would see smoke at nighttime, anyway? And we can start the fire again whenever we like. Altos, you can keep the fire going this week, and trebles next-"

He gestured with his arm to the dark horizon. The sun was half-swallowed by the sea and dying fast. Some of the youngest remembered their fear of the darkness and unknown, and squeezed together, shivering. Sam permitted Eric to drape his previously rejected dirty limb around her, preparing for the nightly chill.

"And we'll be responsible for keeping a lookout too. If we see a ship out there, we'll put green branches on. Then there'll be smoke."

There was no return applause as Jack finished. Instead, Roger seized the shell, staring at the crowd.

"I've been watching the sea. There hasn't been the trace of a ship. Perhaps we'll never be rescued."

Eric gaped at the blatantly unnecessary pessimism. A fearful tremble shook the group, the littlest boys squeaking and afraid.

Ralph, a greater power, returned the conch to himself.

"I said before we'll be rescued sometime," he told the boys, ease restored. "We've just got to wait, is all."

Furiously, Piggy took the conch.

"That's what I said!" he spoke bitterly. "I said about our meetings and things and then you said shut up-"

No one was in the mood to hear him whine. He was shouted rude remarks to calm down and keep quiet, the shell dismissed.

"You said you wanted a small fire and you been and built a pile like a hayrick," he complained, although rightfully so, "you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon-"

He stood so abruptly it was startling. His gaze was fixed to the other side of the mountain. His eyes were wide, mouth open, shifting light reflecting in his glasses. He was silent.

Then, his face rolled up and he began to laugh. It was such a crooked and baffled laugh that Eric felt instantly and instinctively he must protect his baby sister from this terrible hooting thing. He gripped her close, arms locked around her ribcage, nostrils flared. Sam knocked him away and gave him a quizzical look.

"Eric, what-?"

"You got your small fire all right."

Opaque smoke was rising from the lee of the mountain. It climbed to a great height before shifting with the wind, trailing down to the sea like a great dusty drapery. A tree visible to all was afire. It was burned until a snapping sound was heard, the trunk falling sidelong and hitting another. The battered tree was looped with an orange ribbon of flame, the torso and leaves tied in wild bows. The knots were tightened and tightened again until the tree burst under the pressure. A shower of sparks fell upon untouched wood to continue the tirade.

A joyous uproar rose above that of the thundering fire. The boys were cheering for this great domination over nature they had created and unleashed. They were all-powerful, and they quieted to step back and relish in this knowledge. They looked at each other and at the fire admiringly.

Never before had Sam or Eric seen a grander stage display of giving and taking. Pride swelled in them as they watched the forest drown in flames, the twins grinning at one another.

"You got your small fire all right."

That was Piggy. He did not see the incredible fire in the romanticized way of the others; he saw it as it was: hindering, destructive.

Ralph, even as chief, had no control over the flames before him. This, along with Piggy's criticism, upset him immensely.

"Oh, shut up!" he snapped at the boy.

"I got the conch," Piggy said weakly. "I got a right to speak."

Irritable eyes found him. He was ignored promptly, the boys engrossed in watching the burning foliage and concentrating on the sound the cracking trees made as they fell and died in the inferno. Piggy sheltered the shell against himself.

"We got to let that burn out now," he said although none listened. "And that was our firewood. There ain't nothing we can do. We ought to be more careful. I'm scared-"

Jack ripped his attention for the fire to sneer at Piggy.

"You're always scared. Yah-Fatty!"

"I got the conch," Piggy trembled before Jack. "I got the conch, ain't I Ralph?"

Perking, Ralph turned towards Piggy and blinked.

"What's that?"

"The conch. I got a right to speak."

Eric whispered something to Sam and they snickered.

"We wanted smoke-"

"Now look-!"

The noise from the twins caused the entire crowd to giggle. It soon rose into a violent howling of laughter. Piggy turned red in the face from anger.

"I got the conch!" he barked. "Just you listen! The first thing we ought to have made was shelters down there by the beach. It wasn't half cold down there in the night. But the first time Ralph says 'fire' you goes howling and screaming up here this mountain. Like a pack of kids!"

They made no reply.

"How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first things first and act proper?"

He heaved a breath. He took a hand from the conch to fix his glasses, but replaced it when he saw the abrupt craving for the shell. He hid it under his arm as the other boys grabbed for it.

"Then when you get here you build a bonfire that isn't no use. Now you been and set the whole island on fire. Won't we look funny if the whole island burns up? Cooked fruit, that's what we'll have to eat, and roast pork. And that's nothing to laugh at! You said Ralph was chief and you don't give him time to think. Then when he says something you rush off, like, like-"

The fire made a loud growl. Piggy continued his discourse.

"And that's not all. Them kids. The little 'uns. Who took any notice of 'em? Who knows how many we got?"

Ralph advanced and attacked Piggy.

"I told you to," he accused. "I told you to get a list of names!"

"How could I, all by myself?" he defended. "They waited for two minutes, then they fell into the sea; they went into the forest; they just scattered everywhere. How was I to know which is which?"

Ralph bit his lip to hold his temper.

"Then you don't know how many of us there ought to be?"

"How could I with them little 'uns running around like insects? Then when you three came back, as soon as you said make a fire, they all ran away, and I never had a chance-"

"That's enough!" Ralph said with sharp authority, taking the conch to silence Piggy. "If you didn't you didn't."

"-then you come up here an' pinch my specs-"

"You shut up!" Jack yelled. But he did not.

"-and them little 'uns was wandering about down there where the fire is. How d'you know they aren't still there?"

Piggy gasped like he couldn't breath. A questioning hush fell as he began to stuck the air savagely, wheezing and coughing. A shaky finger rose and pointed at the fire.

"That little 'un-" he panted- "him with the mark on his face, I don't see him. Where is he now?"

The noise of the screaming fire amplified.

"Him that talked about the snakes. He was down there-"

A tree collapsed in the forest. The bed of creepers below it caught fire, steaming and bubbling and bursting with movement as they burned. A hissing smoke rose as they died.

The group of the littlest pointed at the vines and shrieked.

"Snakes! Snakes! Look at the snakes!"

Piggy held himself steady with a rock. It no longer looked pink but blood-red by the light of the dying sun and bright fire. Piggy shuddered with breathes.

"That little 'un that had a mark on his face-where is-he now? I tell you I don't see him."

Sam and Eric looked at one another as the horrendous truth came over them. They suddenly saw what they had done not as splendid and stupendous, but as it was: terrible, awful. They had created a monster, a beast, one that ate the island, that ate all hope of returning home.

And now it was eating a child as well.

Sam knew the little boy was frail. He could not move a log if it fell upon him like her, nor would he know what to do when the fire reached him. He would, without a doubt, try and run for the others, giving his body to the flames. The smoke would smoother him and the forest would burn him until he could run no longer. He would fall, and the fire would feast upon his flesh.

All her courage was lost when she looked into the maw of chrisom flame. She felt she was watching an animal at slaughter, that somewhere in this vicious event, in a place she could not see or understand, a life was being lost before her.

Sickened, she looked away from the red beast.

Eric sensed his sister's bravery falter even as her face remained placid. He opened up his arms to her, the girl nudging between them and pressing her chest into his. The boy rubbed her back and said nothing.

"Perhaps he went back to the, the-"

Ralph did not finish the thought. The forest continued to cry as the sun was devoured by the ocean.

.

"Where's your brother?"

Sam looked up from staring at her feet in the water. Her hair was longer now, although not as long as it had been. The honey strands just touched over her ears and at the center of her forehead. Her skin was also darker, toasted by the sun, although not as burned as many. She and Eric always tanned well.

It was Bill who asked, trending near her in the bathing pool.

"Eric's getting fruit," she informed him, also clarifying which twin she was. Bill nodded.

"Why don't you join us?" he invited, backing up a ways to give her room to slip into the water if she pleased. The girl smiled but shook her head.

"I'm not much for swimming."

This was, of course, a lie. She enjoyed swimming quite a lot, but would have to swim in her clothes if wished to do so. It was annoying waiting for them to dry in the already saturated air, and even more so to wash them of brine in the river. (She sweated enough to make laundering difficult as it was.) And so she keep to the water's edge, watching the group of choir boys play in the warm water.

It was not soon after that a war broke out. It began with Maurice's diving stunt resulting in a large wave that sprayed even Robert and Harold sitting on the side of the pool. Sides were chosen and the water used as a weapon, the boys shouting and splashing and wrestling one another in the pool. Sam, the humored bystander, watched with interest.

She shrieked suddenly as a stray spatter smacked her face. And unsteady peace came with the noise, the girl rubbing her eyes of the salty water.

"Bloody hell!" she cursed, using the term she heard her father use when he cut his finger. She glared at the boys, furious. They looked around at one another with uncomfortable apology.

Her temper still raw, she did the only thing she could to physically touch them: she splashed them.

And, in return, Harold splashed her.

The bathing pool erupted into conflict again as the new opponent was targeted. Her prerogative forgotten, Sam flung water at the boys and received return fire. Her wrath disappeared as the game progressed, and she laughed as they joined together to splash her until all she could do was shield her face. When the battle ended all were panting heavily and Sam was drenched as if she had gone swimming after all.

After tranquility was restored, Sam took to caring for herself. She unbuttoned her shirt and pealed it off. She wrung the fabric above the pool, ridding it of water to the best of her ability. She then spread it atop the hot sand, hoping that would aid the drying process.

" _Sam!"_

To her right, Eric stood gaping, his arms brimmed with pickings from the trees. Sam blinked at him.

"Hm? What is it?"

"Put your shirt back on!" he exploded in unexpected anger. He said it so loudly the hunters in the pool looked upon him in question, the boy dipping his head and flushing.

"You'll get burnt," he muttered an explanation. The choir had lost interest by the time he hurried over to his sister, dropping the fruit in favor of wrapping the discarded shirt around her. She looked at her brother and the clothing article in bewilderment.

"You mustn't go about without a shirt," Eric hissed softly. "It's not right."

"But you do it all the time!"

"Yes, but..." he looked at the occupied hunters before leaning closer. "That's different. You're a girl."

"Eric Arthur Coleman!" Sam said in a voice so much like their mother's that Eric winced. "You are just being unfair! I look the same as you."

The girl exposed her chest and motioned between them to validate her point. Eric noticed Maurice glancing at the bickering twins and stiffened up, not at ease until he looked away. He tried a more delicate approach.

"Yes, but... _Boys_ will see you."

"There is nothing to see! Besides," she huffed and crossed her arms, "I don't have to listen to you."

" _I'm_ the older one."

"Only by eleven minutes!" At this time Sam spotted Ralph speaking with Jack, the pair advancing towards the bathing pool. A conspiratorial smirk came to her face.

"You may be older, but Ralph is chief," she stated simply. "I bet he will let me not wear a shirt."

"Sam, that's not-"

"Ralph!" she called before Eric could finish. The fair-hair boy paused his conversation with Jack to look her way, his composure questioning her request.

"Must I wear a shirt?"

Ralph raised an eyebrow at the absurd question. He shook his head and spoke plainly.

"No? Of course not."

"Aha!" Sam declared and stuck her tongue out at her brother. "I told you."

"That's not fair!" Eric cried, fuming and cheeks red from his defeat. Sam scoffed.

"You're not fair!"

They began to grapple each other. It did not last long, however, concluding when Eric landed on a banana that erupted over his back. The happenstance was so comical that both twins burst into laughter while still holding each other, falling apart when it became too much. Neither could fight after that.

"I suppose, in the end, you can do what you want," was all Eric had left to say when they finished their meal of fruit. Sam nodded and patted his head.

"I am my own person, dear brother."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, how I hate rewriting book scenes, my goodness. But next time we get to see the twins hunt with Jack! Hooray!


	3. The King and Queen of the River, the Prince of the Jungle, the King of Beasts, and the Chief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Should the Queen of the River marry the Prince of the Jungle?
> 
> Alternate title: Sex ed??? Title incorporation??? Pig wrestling???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more of my Lord of the Flies nonsense, you can follow my tumblr at ask-thelordoftheflies.

**The King and Queen of the River, the Prince of the Jungle, the King of Beasts, and the Chief**

"Ralph may be _chief_ , but he is not a _queen_."

Eric looked up from scrubbing his shorts in the river. There parading before him in the water was his sister in nothing but her shirt, buttoned at the neck, framing her shoulders like a royal cloak. She walked around the moss-growing rocks with a dignified air, posture perfect and chin high.

"I am Queen of the River," she said, posh. "Ralph can have his silly little boys and his silly little island."

Eric was caught deciding between continuing the act or mocking his sister. Sam chose for him, hiding her face in her hands and giggling at her pretend title.

"Though I suppose I would only own the water 'cause the bottom is part of the island."

Eric shrugged and began to scrub again. "I d'know."

"You're no fun," the girl accused. She unfastened the final button on her shirt and returned to her other clothing. "If I were a queen you could be a _king."_

"Kings and queens are usually married, Sam."

"They _could_ be brother and sister! And sometimes kings used to marry their sisters."

Eric made a retching sound. The girl grinned as her brother gagged at the thought, the idea horrible and sour to him. Sam assured him otherwise.

"We can just rule together, though."

That soothed the boy's indigestion. He continued his laundry and Sam began hers, cleansing her garments of sweat and salt water and general jungle grime. She set them beside her brother's on the riverbank when she finished, then taking to washing herself. They were deep enough in the forest that Sam did not fear for her nudity. Her body equality as salty and filthy as her clothing was bathed thoroughly, the twins taking turns scooping water in coconut shells and poring it over each other's hair. It took patience and diligence to clean themselves entirely.

It was somewhere in the middle of Sam having Eric rinse her back that an abnormal noise from the jungle was heard. Eric paused tending to a section of his sister's peeling skin to listen, guard raised.

It was a trotting sound, the sound of something pushing through underbrush and moving beyond it. Sam took notice also, warily watching the area before her where the sound was originating. The noise stopped, momentarily, the creator seemingly just out of view behind the lining of ferns. The plants rustled as they were eventually moved, giving way first to a pair of spread, tanned hands and then a willowy boy.

Simon was not looking ahead as he walked, instead at the ground, picking through the ferns in a way that would not crush them. He stepped out carefully, shaking his tattered shirt of dew droplets. Only afterwards did he look forward, finding the twins standing in the river.

His expression of kind question morphed into something akin to horror when he gazed upon the whole of Sam's form. He stumbled back a bit, placing the left side of his body into a slanting filter of sunlight. It made his eyelashes appear yellow and revealed that his wide, dark eyes were in fact not black, but a very deep shade of brown. His mouth remained agape as a hot pinkness crawled from his neck to his face, visible even upon his dusky skin.

A strange revulsion came over Sam when she realized what he saw. The mixture of embarrassment and anger and fear and disgust she felt made her nauseous in a queer way she could not recognize. All she knew and understood was that she wanted the staring boy to look away- to have never have looked at all.

When she noticed this she understood how she felt: she felt violated. For the first time in her young life she felt so. She did not feel violated because Simon saw her most private areas, but because he saw her most private areas and she did not _want_ him to. She never wanted him to, never, not ever. This made the occurence different from any of the times she showed her undergarments, for she did not mind then. This transgression of her desires was what made her feel violated, both in body and dignity.

Another revelation occurred as well. This was that a man, a boy, had violated her in some fashion. A fresh introduction of fear and anger came over her as she comprehended what this implied.

She was now defiled. She was now impure.

What Sam knew of sex and the construct of it in society was vague and limited, coming from whispers the girls told at school. She heard, or thought she did, that when you have sex with a man you must then marry him. Through some other tidbits she heard that a man could also violate you, and when he did it was sexual.

These things she remembered frightened Sam.

She believed since Simon violated her, he must have had sex with her, or something close to it.

And now she had to marry him.

A sudden, dry sob escaped the girl's mouth. She learned long ago that on an island of all males crying was seen as weakness and must be contained. She could not use tears as she once did to get what she wanted.

As soon as the sound was released, Sam smacked a hand over her mouth. She crumpled, falling with a splash into the river, pulling up her legs to hide the part of her she wanted Simon to gaze upon no longer, shivering feebly.

The motion sent Big Brother Eric into action. He snarled at the already frightened boy, standing before his sister in a violently protective manner. His disbelieving anger was overwhelming.

" _Go away!_ " he screamed so harshly that Simon flinched and began to shake like Sam. He tried to find his words.

"I-I'm sorry, I-I-"

" _I said go away!"_

The boy cried in panic before leaving swiftly, rushing back the way he came. Eric's rage dipped only slightly when the boy left, his deed done and irreversible. He forced himself to cool when he knelt to comfort his sister trying to mute her wails. He snatched her into a fierce embrace.

"Sam-"

" _But I don't want to marry Simon!"_

The sentence startled and confused him. Going to a school of boys made him more knowledgeable on the topic of sex compared to his sister, both of its proceedings and the happenings around it. He knew what Simon did, even accidental, was indecent, but far from sexual, at least intentionally so. He also had a better understanding of the levels and ways to violate a woman, from incidents like what had happened to the most severe. Eric shushed his little sister nevertheless, rubbing her arm.

"I'm not going to; no one can make me. I'll run away from the wedding."

"Don't be foolish, you don't have to marry Simon," Eric reassured her. "Why would you ever have to do that?"

"Because he defiled me!" Sam cried. "He had sex with me and now I have to marry him."

Eric blanched. "Sam, he didn't have sex with you."

The girl looked up to her brother, eyes red from scoring away tears.

"What?"

"That's not how it works..."

Slightly flushed, Eric gave his sister a short overview. He explained how Simon may have violated her, although not sexually, and even if he did she would not have to marry him.

"I would kill 'em if he deflowered you, anyway," Eric scoffed. "So you see, there is nothing to fret about. You don't have to marry anyone."

The smile he expected from Sam did not come. The girl was still hugging her legs, eyes barely peeking over her knees. She was overjoyed that she had not consummated a marriage, yet was bothered by something else.

Her whisper was minutely louder than the sound of the water flowing around her.

"Eric... What if he tells the others I'm not a boy?"

Truthfully, the boy did not know how to answer, how to dash away Sam's fear. He fumbled with his thoughts, lost. He, finally, improvised.

"Then I suppose the game is up."

Sam buried her face in her knees.

"If he does, I don't think I'll have fun on this island."

"I suppose you'll have to ask him not to."

Her head shot up at her brother's half-hearted wisdom. She stared at him for a long moment, long enough to unsettle him. In reality she never wanted to see or speak to Simon again. She, however, fathomed something had to be done if she wanted things to remain as they were. She had to tell him not to disclose her gender before he did and ruined everything. Sam swallowed and spoke.

"I suppose so."

.

Sam and Eric dressed in their partially wet clothing and navigated through the jungle, finding their way back to the beach with the meeting platform. The youngest children, who were now collectively called littluns, scampered in the morning glare of the sun, playing in the surf or inventing games or building houses and fake cities in the sand.

Simon was not near the bathing pool with the other older boys, nor with any of the groups of littluns. Even by splitting their search they could not find him, whether they looked in the forest or along the beach. The twins took everyone's passive attitude and Robert's greeting of 'Hey, boys!' as a sign that Simon had not told the others about what he saw, and this relieved Sam. She just needed to find him and tell him to continue this.

While separated from Eric she subsequently spotted the elusive boy, sitting in a place she was sure she had looked twice. He was within the shade of a palm tree, a rock in hand, hacking at a stubborn coconut. Hesitantly, Sam pushed aside her nervous embarrassment, walking up to him quietly.

"Simon."

Simon raised his head at the voice. His eyes widen when he saw who had spoken, a reactive blush touching his cheeks. Not wanting to feel like she was standing over him, Sam squatted, resting on her haunches beside him. Absently, she brushed her hair in place and twirled it for a moment.

"Hello," she began, awkwardly. Simon nodded.

"Hello."

"I'm... sorry you had to see that," she apologized although neither of them were really at fault.

"No, I'm sorry," Simon said, taking the blame. "That was inappropriate of me. I'm sorry. I won't go there again."

Sam acknowledged his words with a single nod. She looked sidelong, watching a pair of littluns jumping and screaming in the waves. She bit her lip and paused.

"Please don't tell anyone," she said, tone more pleading than she meant it to be. Her gaze dropped to the sand, her finger's swirling to make shell-like designs. She crossed them out as soon as they were formed, leaving the ground etched with jagged lines. She waited.

"I wasn't going to, even if you didn't ask me. I am sure you have you're reasons."

The girl's head snapped up. She found the other's eyes, looking into them, trying to find any sparkle of deceit or tease. She instead saw sincere compassion, true kindness, and the umber of his actual eye color. The puppy-like droopiness of his eyes raised when he smiled, and it was such a grand, warm smile that Sam felt she must smile as well.

She said all there was to say.

"Okay. Thank you."

There was no discomfort as their gaze's released. Simon returned to breaking his coconut and Sam stood, freeing her legs of the position's pressure. She saw the struggles of the boy and felt a need to help, kneeling before him in a more appropriate manner.

"Here, let me get it."

With a single thwack of the rock a crack appeared. She took the opened coconut and ripped it into two sections, the milk saved to one side. She grinned as she offered the fruit to the bewildered boy.

"You are quite strong."

The lack of 'for a girl' tacked onto the end of the statement made Sam happy. She laughed softly, standing to leave again.

"Thanks. I'll be seeing you, Simon."

She departed with a wave, racing down the beach to find her twin brother.

.

Sam and Eric had a grandmother who lived in the country. Sometimes, when their parents felt it was too dangerous to stay in the city, the family would take a train and spend the weekend with her.

And the twins liked it; for the most part.

Their grandmother was a sweet woman who was widowed by the last war. She lived in a brick cottage and had a creek in her back pasture where they would often go and play. They swam and hunted for frogs and slid along the rapids, going inside for a glass of lemonade whenever they liked. Their grandmother made the drink with honey and mint, uncarbonated, like they had in America.

Their younger cousin would also stay with them. She was permanent, for her mother preferred home education over a private school in the city. She disliked Sam and Eric immensely, for she was young enough to be bratty and did not like to share her room. The twins spent much of their time outside to keep away from her.

They always had to return home, however, after the weekend was done, as so the twins could go to school and their parents to work.

On the weekend before the plane ride, a day after Sam had cut her hair, the girl had uncovered something interesting in her grandmother's shed. It was a rough, broken stone, vaguely bird shaped, grey on one face and yellow on the other. She showed it to her grandmother.

 _It's a whetstone_ , she explained. _From when your grandfather was a knife-sharpener. It made of Coticule, from Belgium. I thought I sold all of them many years ago, but I suppose not._

Sam was allowed to keep it. She put it in her pocket and found it remained even after the plane crash.

.

Now while on fire-duty she was looking at the stone, running her thumb around the smooth edge. There was a small curve that resembled a head, with a triangle for the beak, and a fat crescent for the body. A longer, sloped triangle made the tail, with two discernable feathers. She lifted her head as her brother spoke.

"Jack's coming."

The tall boy could be seen picking his way up the mountain. A sharpened stick was being used as a walking staff, the point not yet hardened by the fire. The twins were hopeful he was coming to relieve them of their promise to stand in for Robert and all of the other choir members while they hunted. Eric put a branch onto the burning pile.

"What's that?"

It took a moment for Sam to realize Jack had spoken to her. His eyes were on her hands, gazing at the stone she held, flames licking at his spear. She lifted her hands to give Jack a better look.

"It's a whetstone," she informed him. "It's made outta stone from Belgium."

"That's brill," Jack said, suddenly excited. "I can use it to sharpen my knife."

The girl shook her head, tucking the stone back into her pocket.

"It's special-"

"-from our Nanna-"

"-it was our grandfather's."

Jack was not fazed by the twins speaking together. He only scowled, removing his spear from the fire. Thinking that was the end of his visit, Sam and Eric put their attention to the dying fire, feeding it another stick. They were surprised when Jack spoke.

"Samneric, come on."

He was walking down the mountain without them. Enthused to be free from responsibility, the twins scrambled to trot after him, now uncaring of the fire. Jack lead them down the mountainside and to the mouth of the river where a banking of water formed. Bill was kneeling in the shade by the pool of shallow water. Jack ordered the group to wait before going off into the forest alone, returning with Roger and two leaves. The dark boy was as furtive as ever, his long hair making him now seem gloomy. Jack knelt beside Bill and opened the leaves, revealing globs of white and red clay. His blackened staff was beside him.

"They don't smell me," he tried to explain to the people around him. "They see me, I think. Something pink, under the trees."

Sam thought him very pink indeed, with his terrible sunburn hiding even his darkest freckles. Jack dipped a finger into the red and smeared his cheek.

"If only I'd some green!"

Roger said nothing. Jack turned to him, continuing to color his cheeks.

"For hunting. Like in the war. You know- dazzle paint. Like things trying to look like something else-" his brow furrowed- "like moths on a tree trunk."

Roger nodded in understanding. A thought came to the twins and they decided to act upon it, shuffling forward together.

"Jack-"

"-the fire-"

"-did you send someone up?-"

"-Ought we go and keep it going?"

The boy, more interested in painting himself and looking at his reflection, waved them away.

"Shut up."

They did not know how to take this. They backed away as Jack smeared charcoal from the staff onto his face.

"No. You two come with me."

Sam and Eric did not know which two he spoke of. He was looking at his reflection incredulously. Deciding he did not like the design, Jack scrubbed his face, cleaning it of its markings. Roger grinned.

"You don't half look a mess."

Jack spat in his direction. He then took to coating his face differently, composing a new mask of red and white and black. He leaned close to the pool when he finished, contemplating whether he liked this mask.

"Samneric. Get a coconut. An empty one."

The twins did as requested. Jack saw a better mirror of his portrait in the water of the shell. He awed himself, believing his face paint to be a dazzling artwork. He jumped up, laughing, tossing the coconut of its contents. The new composure of confidence that the mask provided amazed the twins, and appalled them, Bill and Roger just as star-struck. Jack clapped his hands and danced about, his noises of joy changing into a violent snarling. He swung around Bill and continued to snarl, the boy laughing until he silenced. The mask motioned towards the forest and he went there.

The mask then came for Sam and Eric. A grin of white teeth was hanging from the awesome face, startling the twins, and gaining their attention as well.

"The rest are making a line. Come on!"

"But-"

"-we-"

"Come on! I'll creep up and stab-"

Their opposition was weak and futile. The mask dashed into the forest and the knew they must follow.

.

The brown earth of the jungle was hot. Sam and Eric, like the other hunters, moved barefoot, stepping carefully and silently around the foliage and fallen detritus. The painted face of Jack lead the procession, creeping, following a pig run. He crouched momentarily, finding a mound of pig's dung.

"They're close."

He spoke in almost a whisper. The sea could be heard ahead, battering the shore. The lee of the mountain was also visible, with a quickly dying flare of smoke traveling upwards. None noticed.

"There."

Just beyond the heaps of creepers a herd of pigs could be seen on the shore. The ocean had pulled long tangles of seaweed onto the beach and the pigs were dining on the vegetation. Jack gestured to one, a young, pink sow, a distance from the others and with her back turned.

"Her. Make a circle."

A wide horseshoe was formed. There was a tense hesitation as the party lifted their spears, waiting.

"Now!"

The hunters released a shrill cry as they bounded wildly from the forest. Startled, the herd of pigs shrieked and ran, worming their struggling bodies into and through the creepers. The targeted sow, lost, senseless, and frightened, dashed towards the sea. She quickly saw this would not aid her, instead turning to face her cage of spear-wielding boys. She squealed as the first spear was thrown, the point grazing her backside. Now mad with fear and desperation, she charged, screaming.

Sam and Eric each had a spear in different hands: Sam's in her left, Eric's in his right. They moved with the hunters as they closed the eyelet, weapons ready to strike. They did not expect the first spear not to pierce the animal, and therefore did not expect the pig to stampede. The sow barreled towards them, slamming herself into Eric's legs. Struck by the suddenness and weight of the pig, Eric tumbled back with a shout. In his determination to remain standing and hold the circle he reached out, grabbing his sister. Cheering in protest, Sam fell, hitting the ground with her brother. The pig nimbly jumped over the fallen forms.

Before Eric could even realize he had taken his sister down with him, Sam was up. He blinked, looking over, seeing the spear but not it's owner. With immense rage turning her red the girl launched herself, landing hard on the back of the sow. There was a high-pitched wail from the pig as she was wrestled to the ground. Even with her incredible strength Sam knew she was waging a losing battle trying to trump an animal fighting for its life. Holding the thrashing pig was like trying to restrain an attacking, full-grown bull mastiff. The monstrous power of the sow eventually won, the creature struggling free.

"Sam!"

Breathless and dirty, she took her discarded spear from her brother. She may not have killed the pig herself, but her action saved enough time for the other hunters to reform the circle. Roger jammed his stick into the animal's back, paralyzing her lower half, leaving her to pull herself with her front legs in a final, pitiful effort to escape. Another spear to the side caused her to collapse before Jack jumped on her, lifting her head and slicing her throat. There was a wet outcry as the sow died, her blood running onto the sand and staining Jack's hands. Grinning, the boy lifted his red, soiled hands, showing the crowd.

"We killed the pig!"

"Cut her throat!"

"Spilled her blood!"

"We killed the pig, cut her throat, spilled her blood! _Kill the pig, cut her throat, spill her blood!"_

The joy and uproar of the kill made the hunters sing and dance. They relished in this, raising their spears as they capered around the dead carcass, chanting the same tune.

" _Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood."_

Even though she was already sore from her encounter, Sam stood, finding her brother in the ring of hunters. They grinned and laughed with one another, dancing together in celebration of their achievement.

" _Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!"_

Eventually, even this subsided and the group dispersed. Jack went to work gutting the pig, throwing the innards into the ocean, tying the pig by her legs to one of the wooden staffs. His sharp eyes scanned the selection of boys.

"Samneric, you carry the pig."

It was Sam who carried most of the weight, her brother simply keeping the stick parallel to the ground and the carcass from sliding off. They walked behind Jack as he led the hunters towards the mountain, towards the cooking fire. The canopy of trees blotted out the top of the mountain from view as they looped around it in favor of the less vertical side. Those with spears raised them in unison, beginning the mantra again.

" _Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood."_

The twins chanted along as the pig swung between them. The procession walked along the beach before turning to the mountain, Sam and Eric warily moving up the graveled path. The noise of the hunters shushed as they reached the peak of the mountain.

Ralph, Simon, Piggy, and Maurice awaited them. Between the group of four and the hunting party was a collection of ash: the dead fire.

Jack, the leader, stepped forward and spoke.

"Look!" he cried at his victory. "We've killed a pig- we stole up on them- we got in a circle-"

"We got in a circle-" one voice enthused.

"We crept up-" said another.

"The pig squealed-"

Sam and Eric, sharing a grin, showed the pig off with a rather turbulent swing. Fat splatters of blood fell from the open neck, leaving puddles of purple on the pink rock. Overwhelmed with his excitement Jack careened towards Ralph, quick to check his dignity and only smile. He seemed to remember his bloody hands, a look of distaste on his face as he cleaned them on his shorts. He laughed, waiting for Ralph's response.

The chief's voice was icy.

"You let the fire go out."

Jack seemed upset by this unimportant and irrelevant fact. He shook his head, grinning again.

"We can light the fire again. You should have been with us, Ralph. We had a smashing time. The twins got knocked over-"

"We hit the pig-" Eric introduced.

"-I fell on top-" Sam, the still ache in her bones, said proudly.

"I cut the pig's throat," Jack said arrogantly, as if he had done the most work, had done it alone. "Can I borrow yours, Ralph, to make a nick in the hilt?"

The hunters began to move and hum again. Sam and Eric lurched the body of the pig to and fro in a rhythm, pitching the remaining blood onto the rocks. They looked at each other and grinned.

"There was lashings of blood," Jack said with great passion, "you should have seen it! We'll go hunting everyday-"

Ralph, unflinching, spoke the same bitter words.

"You let the fire go out."

Now Jack was unsettled. He looked at the slowing pendulum of the pig and then to Ralph, lips in a fine line.

"We had to have them in the hunt," he spoke of Sam and Eric and the other boys, "or there wouldn't have been enough for a ring."

He grimaced at the knowledge of his wrongness, heat rising to his painted face.

"The fire's only been out an hour or two. We can light up again-"

This did not impress Ralph. As a trail of scarlet blood ran from the chief's chest to his naval his creeper-whipped body became painfully oblivious. A conflicted expression clouded Jack's face, the boy dominated by wondrous memories of inflicting power over a weaker living creature and the need to share this joy, but also cut by Ralph's disinterest and scorn. He tried, a last time, arms wide.

"You should have seen the blood!"

Ralph looked to the twin's feet, viewing the blood with an unreadable expression. An absolutely wrathful visage crossed his face. The chief gripped his fair hair with one hand, throwing out his other to the blue horizon. His voice rang loud and awful.

"There was a ship."

Each syllable was said with hurtful bite. Feeling lost at the scrutiny of the others, Jack ducked away before he could be ashamed, having the twins spread the pig on the ground. The brother and sister immediately clung together, heavy with their own guilt and shame. Ralph growled and lowered his arm.

"There was a ship. Out there. You said you'd keep the fire going and you let it out!" Jack whirled around as Ralph stepped forward, his knife in one hand.

"They might have seen us," Ralph said darkly. "We might have gone home-"

Piggy, who had been silent under the tension, broke, crying out in protest to this terrible thing.

"You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home-"

Ralph pushed Piggy away and silenced him.

"I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can't even build huts- then you go off hunting and let out the fire-"

He shuttered a breath, looking away from the person before him. Jack continued to frown, turning back to carving the pig. Ralph's voice quivered with feeling.

"There was a ship-"

The heartfelt words were understood by all. Presently one of the younger hunters began to cry, Sam and Eric huddled close. They felt they had a major part in this torment, with their decision to follow the masked leader on the hunt. Sam put her cold heart against Eric's to try to warm it.

Jack's body was stiff with the strain of failure.

"The job was too much. We needed everyone," he attempted to justify. The chief was not satisfied.

"You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you had to hunt-"

"We needed meat."

The words were tart. Jack stood once again, the knife he held now bloody. He faced Ralph and he the same, two alpha males challenging one another, two boys with differing opinions they could not believe held any wrong. This display of crude masculinity choked the air and discomforted Sam more than she already was, even the touch of her fairly neutral brother unsettling.

Jack, the lesser, eventually had to give ground, faltering. He pushed the hair from his face and left red streaks.

Unwisely, Piggy chose to speak.

"You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep the smoke going."

The twins nodded in agreement, the others, for once, commending Piggy with hums. Sam and Eric spoke quietly together.

"We offered-"

"-to stay-"

"-for the fire."

The pressure of betrayal became too much for Jack. He had known from the moment he had guided the twins from the mountain what would happen to the fire and had seen no issue with this. Now what he thought was frivolous was seen as dreadful, and this made him angry. He rushed to Piggy, towering over him, growling.

"You would, would you? Fatty!"

He swung his hand and smacked the boy's face. Piggy cried out in a panic, fumbling, his spectacles falling to be broken.

"My specs!"

He dropped to his knees and felt around for his needed item. Simon, kind Simon, found them first. He put them on the boy's ears and spoke, softly.

"One side's broken."

With his sight returned, Piggy pushed the glasses up his nose, glaring at Jack.

"I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye. Jus' you wait-"

Jack lurched forward and scared Piggy, the boy shrieking and scurrying behind a bolder like an insect. Jack dared not step further forward as Ralph moved warningly in his direction, his sea-blue eyes malevolent. Piggy peeked his head over the rock.

"Now I only got one eye. Just you wait-"

Jack copied the tone, whining to mock him.

"Jus' you wait-yah!"

There was such a likeness that the boys began to laugh. Sam said nothing, unlatching from her brother. She watched the encouraged Jack continue his cruel show, her face blank, unamused. Eric could see the disappointment cross her eyes. She had thought better of Jack, while Eric always saw him as one to single out others. Now they both thought sourly of him.

Ralph ended the laughter with his voice.

"That was a dirty trick."

The hot words hit Jack, stilling him. Wanting to cease this hateful stand-off, Jack threw up his hands, motioning all about.

"All right, all right! I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. I-"

He drew in a breath and lifted himself.

"-I apologize."

The hunters were so impressed by the idea of Jack apologizing that they did not hear the falseness to his tone. They now saw the tall boy as generous, good, one who could be forgiven for anything. They looked to Ralph, seeing if he had the decency to accept Jack's gift.

"That was a dirty trick."

The chief's point still stood. Jack had struck Piggy, had allowed a ship to pass the island, had allowed the fire to go out, and no amount of apologies could fix this. Jack stood silent, red burning at his cheeks.

Ralph, ultimately, sighed. He shook his head, gesturing to the dead ashes.

"All right. Light the fire."

The thick air melted away. The boys on the mountain became whole again as they built the new fire up in another place. Ralph lighted it with Piggy's spectacles, the roasting of the slaughtered pig commencing. It was a difficult task finding a stick long and thick enough to cook a section of meat upon, the boys having to bare the heat of the flames if they wished for their pork not to be raw. Sam and Eric got a portion of the shoulder to share, Eric braving the heat to roast the meat. They ate ravenously, overjoyed by this new addition to their diet of fruit and nuts. Sam found a raw section and did not mind.

Simon sat to her side. The friction between them was slight and easily forgotten in favor of other concerns, such as the tendons in her meat. The boy stirred when Piggy spoke.

"Aren't I having none?"

Jack swallowed his mouthful and denied him.

"You didn't hunt."

"No more did Ralph, nor Simon. There isn't more than a ha'porth of meat in a crab."

Ralph looked willfully at Jack and the boy paid no attention. Simon offered his hands full of pork meat to Piggy, the dark-eye boy smiling as he sacrificed his portion. With a nod of thanks Piggy took the flesh and bit down upon it.

Eric leaned towards his sister and whispered.

"Piggy wants pig meat."

Even Sam thought this was playful and giggled. The twins did not notice as Simon believed the jeer was for him and dipped his head.

Annoyed by the display of something he could not control, Jack cut a great slab of meat from the carcass, throwing it upon Simon's lap.

"Eat! Damn you!"

Simon shriveled.

"Take it!"

Simon buried his teeth in the half-cooked flesh. Sam looked upon Jack with distaste as he spun towards the crowd, shouting.

"I got you meat!"

As his rage grew so did his volume, his voice echoing down the unfriendly side of the mountain.

"I painted my face- I stole up. Now you eat- all you- and I-"

He was struck silent as he saw no awe, no admiration in the crowd. He only saw confused and misplaced respect, the boys looking to the mask and not him. Ralph stood from the scatted ashes of a dead fire, saying nothing. He didn't need to.

Maurice shattered the silence, skillfully diverting conflict.

"Where did you find the pig?"

Roger motioned to the lee of the mountain. "They were there- by the sea."

The telling of the epic brought the group together anew. There was a jumble of excited talk as the story was told, the twins joining in as it was reenacted. Eric was the pig and Sam demonstrated how she jumped onto the animal by wrangling her brother, the hunters remembering this with a good laugh. Then Maurice was the pig and the hunters showed how they circled the creature, striking him with imaginary sticks.

" _Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in."_

There was a howling of laughter as Maurice squealed and died. The ring of hunters fell apart and the charade ended, the noise dying down. Ralph waited until they halted to speak.

"I'm calling an assembly."

The twins blinked at his harsh suddenness. The chief's expression was like iron, his jaw firm.

"With the conch. I'm calling a meeting even if we have to go on into the dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now."

And with that he turned and walked down the mountainside. The slanting light of evening twirled in his fair-hair, giving him the look of a golden, angry halo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam now has nightmares about having Simon's forever-fainting children. They would probably be really cute together, tbh, like 'The Gift of the Magi' couple or something. The Sam/Simon ship is called Salmon.


	4. Beasts of Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Eric for all your Eric needs.

**Beasts of Man**

Ralph was absolutely livid. He, a chief, had to remind those below him of his decrees and laws. He rallied the assembly with the conch as always, calling everyone to the platform. This meeting was exceptionally serious, unusually business-like, very different than the normal evening meetings that were playful and homely, like a family gathering around the dinner table. Even the littluns knew the significance of calling an assembly in the dark.

Ralph began critically, and rightfully so. He brought everyone's wrongdoings to light, reprimanding the group as a whole, showing that he was not a weak chief who would just push mistakes aside. The way he went about his speech was very grown-up, and this made the boys feel attacked, oppressed like they were with adults around. There was clamor and arguing against their leader. The power of the conch and Ralph's authority eventually calmed them, yet only vaguely. Chaos appeared ready to ensue at any provocation.

Sam and Eric felt horribly guilty throughout the meeting. They felt they had a major role creating the chief's anger by leaving the fire unattended even though it was Jack who had lured them away and the fire was ultimately his choir's responsibility. They did not object when Ralph announced that the twins would be on fire watch for the night. Even though having to tend the fire for all the pervious day, as well as pig hunt, and then watch it all night was terribly unfair they only nodded, agreeing. They did what their chief asked of them.

A part of the assembly Sam and Eric did not understand was when Ralph spoke of the rifts forming in the group. They who held loyalties only to one another did not, or could not, see the walls going up around them, the cracks splitting the others apart. Ralph said it was because of fear. Jack said it was because of the littluns.

The boy was quick to blame all of the problems on the weakest of them all: the youngest children. Sam found great distaste in this scapegoating of the littluns, yet expected as much from Jack. She did not necessarily believe, or liked to think she did not, in the beast two of the little boys stepped forward to tell of, but did not want to accuse them entirely for everyone's fear. That was cruel and mean and outright nonsensical.

Amongst the conflict the talk turned to that of ghosts. Simon had tried to convey what he thought of the beast as and failed miserably. No one understood what the boy was struggling so valiantly to communicate, and so he was laughed at, teased into silence. Sam sorrowed for him but could do nothing to aid his plight.

The debate that arose to whether or not there were ghosts dissolved the order of the assembly. Jack shouted and spat and was scolded for speaking out of turn, the angry boy dismissing and hateful towards Ralph and his rules. He tired of Ralph's assertion as chief and jumped from the platform with a shout, the others who were also bored of Ralph's failing assembly joining him. They whooped and yelled and danced on the sand free from any of the chief's control. When Eric stood to follow them Sam pulled him down, shaking her head. He then seemed to recover from whatever spell the wild dancing had imposed on him, nodding when his sister pointed into the jungle.

The twins left the platform for the dark mountain.

Had Ralph not lost his confidence, had Ralph regained himself, had he found the heart to blow the conch, to call order, Sam and Eric would have stopped, turning around to return to their chief.

But no bugling sounded. There was only the howl of the littlun named Percival as he cried out for what he had lost.

.

Eric could sense that his sister was exhausted. The grappling of the pig had made the whole of her body ache, having to drag logs up the mountain beforehand contributing to her pain as well. She fell into the nest of leaves as soon as they had fed the fire. She opened her arms and motioned with them, bidding her brother to join her. Theoretically, they should have split the fire duty into shifts, but could not bring themselves to do so. One forever sleeping and one forever waiting for the other to wake seemed a sad existence.

However, Eric shook his head, flashing a smile.

"No, I'm going to collect wood. I'll lay with you when I get back."

He made to stand but was seized by his sister's hand. The flickering fire shone in her wide eyes, revealing her fearful expression. Eric looked to her curiously, questioning the hold on his wrist. Realizing abruptly what she had done Sam dropped her hand, saving her brother from her iron grip.

"I don't want you to go..." she mumbled, nipping at her bottom lip. "I don't want you to leave me here."

"I said I'll be back," he told her. "I'm jus' gonna get enough wood to last us until morning."

"I'll go with you," she decided, the leaves snapping around her as she moved. Eric shook his head, easing her back into the bed of foliage.

"You need to rest or otherwise you'll wear yourself out, like when Papa sprained his back from lifting too much cargo. You're not invincible, Sam."

"I know," she said with a note of irritably. She was silent for a moment before she sighed, rolling over and rustling her bedding.

"Eric, do you think there are beasts?"

Eric didn't really know how to respond. He rubbed his head, floundering for a thought, humming uncomfortably. He eventually just shrugged.

"Maybe," he decided. "I d'know, Sam. There are a lot of things out there that frighten people."

"I think people are beasts," she said with her tone dipping lazily. "But they tear you apart with words, not with teeth and claws."

Eric chuckled softly. "You sound like Piggy, like Simon."

Sam murmured a drowsy reply. Eric leaned down and kissed her forehead gently. She inclined her head when he pulled away, whispering.

"Eric... If everyone on this island is really going against each other, I don't want you to go against me. I want you to always be on my side."

"Don't be silly," he muttered back. "I'll always be on your side. I promise."

Sam said nothing in return. Eric erected from sitting, walking down the unfriendly side of the mountain. He only hoped his sister did not hear the fear in his voice.

.

Eric knew there were beasts. Eric knew there were dark things, things that hid in the night and things you could never hope to understand. The waited, masked by darkness, for the feeblest human mind to see them and know how utterly helpless one could be when consumed by fear.

For that's what beasts do: make humans become something they never wanted to be.

Eric had to feel his way in the dark. He coughed and spat as the clouds of ash dusted the air, stumbling around until he found a patch of spared firewood. He collected as much as he could before climbing back to the signal fire. He built the wood around the fire, as he thought, strategically, hoping the placement would feed the flames until daylight. The surplus was placed aside, the boy then snuggling beside his sister on the palette of leaves. She was cold to the touch and shivering in her sleep. Eric wrapped himself around his sister, trying his hardest to warm her, even minimally. Sam relaxed at Eric's presence.

Both twins were asleep when the figure dropped from the sky. The dead body landed atop the mountain, tangling itself in the trees, waiting to be found by those who could not understand it.

.

Sam awoke with Eric's nose burrowed into her back. The entirety of him was nuzzling into her, his snug arms latched around her waist to hold her close. It was a strange contrast having a warm backside and a cool front, the girl prickling from the cold and rolling around in her brother's arms. The leaves hissed as she snuggled her face into his chest.

"Good morning," Eric managed to say sleepily. He shifted a bit and pecked her crown.

"It's still night," she argued meekly.

"No, the sky's getting grey," he blinked and observed. "The sun's gonna come up soon. We'd better-"

"-tend the fire. All right."

The two parted. Sam groaned at her sore muscles, taking a minute to stretch and crack her joints. Eric helped her to stand and they walked up the mountain to the bed of the fire.

A thin thread of smoke flurried from the ashes. Seeing this, Sam paused her yawning, searching through the pile of brush her brother had collected to find appropriate tinder. Eric knelt and squinted at the remaining, blackened branches.

"I think it's out."

He overturned the largest stick, sparks flashing. A few glowing embers trailed smoke.

"No."

He took the offered wood from his sister. He then lay level with the square embers, blowing, the orange light brightening momentarily. Eric motioned to Sam.

"Sam- give us-"

"-leaves. Tinder wood."

Sam did not mind the reference to themselves as together, as a whole. It was a habit left over from when they were younger, from when people did not bother to call upon them separately. As twins, addressing themselves as 'us' and 'we' was sometimes second-place.

Sam returned with leaves and even thinner branches. She raised a leaf to the embers, seeing if they were interested, the dry tinder catching flame. She dropped the leaf and added more, then building upon the pile with sticks. Eric included his and Sam went back for more.

"Don't burn the lot," Eric warned as larger branches joined the others, "you're putting on too much."

"Let's warm up," Sam reasoned, rubbing her arms covered only by a worn shirt.

"We'll only have to fetch more wood."

"I'm cold," Sam pouted. "I'll go and get more when we need to." Eric sighed, but nodded.

"So'm I."

"Besides," Sam looked about worriedly, "it's-"

"-dark," Eric admitted the fear so Sam would not have to. "All right, then."

He watched as his sister placed more wood upon the growing fire, a breath easing him. They were lucky the fire had survived the night, for had it not, they would have had to leave the mountain and ask for Piggy's spectacles. This irresponsibility would have no doubt upset Ralph and neither of the twins wished to do that, much less after the night before. Eric spoke quietly.

"That was near."

Understanding his thoughts, Sam nodded in agreement. "He'd have been-"

"Waxy."

"Huh."

There was now an odd tension in the air. In an attempt to relieve this strain Eric covered his mouth, snickering.

"Wasn't he waxy?"

Sam raised and eyebrow. "About the-"

"Fire and the pig."

Sam hummed at the specification. "Lucky he went for Jack, 'stead us."

"Huh."

Sam smiled, giggling as well. "Reminded me of my handwriting teacher. She was waxy."

"Wasn't she the one who smacked you for writing with your left hand?"

"Yes!" Sam confirmed, lifting up her dominate hand. Were one close enough and were it not so dark, tick-mark scars could be seen. "She stopped, though."

"After-"

"-I came in mussed up. She asked me what happened and I told her I beat up Suzy Lee's older brother for calling me Samantha. She stopped after that."

"I remember that! You were ace, bruised his eye and everything."

They laughed together. When silence fell again the air pointedly remained thick. Sam and Eric sat still taxed by this tension, weighted by the fact that they could not joke away their mistakes, at least not this time. Their faults and the darkness of the night lingered, surrounding them, reminding them of beasts and Ralph's black anger. Responsibility is a terrible burden, and the consequences even more so.

Eric glanced at Sam almost guiltily before staring with disinterest at the burning branches. The flames and the heat reminded him of the first fire, the great one, and the forest of ashes coating the lee of the mountain. He remembered how the inferno had terrified his sister, how she had to turn to him for comfort. He shook his head of these terrible memories when Sam cried out in pain.

"Bloody hell," she swore, lowering her arms from stretching above her head. She rubbed under her arms and whined. "My armpits hurt something awful."

"It's from that pig you wrangled," Eric advised. "And all those logs you carried up the mountain by yourself."

"Maybe," Sam said, then laughed. "Maybe I'm finally getting breasts."

Eric knew Sam only said it for fun, but the statement unsettled him. The icy fear of change bloomed in his chest. He knew one day, perhaps one day soon, Sam would begin to change: her chest would grow supple, her waist would clinch, and she would begin to look unlike him, begin to look like a woman. Other boys would also begin to see her differently. She would become an object of lust and adoration, something to impress and gain idly. This knowledge of what would probably be upset and frightened Eric. He was not prepared to grow apart from his sister and did not think he would ever be.

Eric hung his head and coughed.

"Sam, no... Don't say such things."

"Sorry, sorry," she soothed from across the fire. "The pig I wrestled made me sore, I'm sure of it."

Eric said nothing in reply. He reached his hands out to the fire, warming them, lifting his head to look at the sky. The blue was fading to grey and the orange of day was already at the horizon. His eyes followed the bleeding light to the failing night, dropping at the other end of the world, viewing beyond his sister to the clusters of shadowed rock. A mass rose from the scattering of stones, startling the boy.

"Sam."

The girl looked up from tossing wood onto the fire. "Huh?"

Eric blinked and what he saw was gone. He shook his head, the idea and image discarded to be forgotten. "Nothing."

Sam shrugged. She shuffled over as the signal of smoke blew her way, her body no longer blotting out a gap in the rock. Eric witnessed a crumpled shape moving, gangly outlines like arms and ropey claws flinging outwards, a wideness like wings blowing open. The firelight flickered upon the figure. Something akin to eyes appeared: two orbs gleaming wet.

"Sam-"

"Huh?" she asked again.

"Sam! Sam!"

The creature fumbled and stood. Sam glared at her brother, annoyed. Her visage disappeared when she saw the horror in his eyes. She whipped around to look behind her, scrambling backwards, her brother catching her in his arms. Subconsciously, he held her slightly behind him, the pair staring at the unknown thing as they clung together. The fire gave the alien shapes of its form a red glow. The trunk of it jerked suddenly forth and a loud hissing sounded, the wings of the figure raising higher. Sam and Eric glanced at one another in matched, horrendous anguish.

And suddenly they were sprinting. They heard the beast roar as they slid down the mountainside, gravel tumbling after them as it made to follow. Their hearts and lungs were afire as they ran for their lives, a united desperation for survival driving them to stand as soon as they fell and jump over shallow boulders in daring leaps. At the edge of the mountain path Eric gave a scream. He tripped over himself and crashed, rolling down an incline and into the thorny jungle creepers. Sam shrieked and stumbled after him.

" _Eric!"_

She tore at the undergrowth viciously. Fear choked her throat as she tried to cry out for her brother, hot tears unregistered in her frenzied mind as they washed her cheeks. Even with a great part of herself pulling at her, pleading for her to run, she refused. No power in the world could ever make her leave Eric.

Eric reached for her and she grabbed him. Ignoring the fiery pain in her muscles she hoisted him out of the creepers, the boy wailing as they torn at his skin. He stood as soon as he was able and raced with his sister, the girl keeping their hands locked together so he would not fall again. A growl sounded behind them and Eric yelped as something snagged the back of his shirt. He twisted and the feeling departed. The thought of the monster reaching out to them with its claws made the two run faster. They dashed into the jungle, their one motive to flee from the creature. They made their way towards the camp to tell Ralph of this awful beast.

Above, the ensnarling creeper fell to the forest floor. And atop the mountain, the dead man sat as the wind pushed his parachute down.

.

"Ralph! Wake up!"

Sam and Eric bounded onto the dry leaves together, crushing them in their wake. They tried again, closer this time.

"Ralph, wake up!"

Ralph awoke in a fit. He tossed about and looked to the twins, a tautness that was meant to prepare him for a possible fight rigging his muscles.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, his inquiry clear and chiefly even though he had just awoken. Sam and Eric gripped his arm.

"We saw-"

"-the beast-"

"-plain as day!"

Ralph blinked, narrowing his eyes against the dark.

"Who are you? The twins?"

They did not see who they were as important. They insisted again.

"We saw the beast-"

"Quiet," Ralph ordered sharply. He reached among the leaves for the other boy in the shelter. "Piggy!"

Piggy veered towards Ralph and knocked against him. Sam, being the only twin strong enough to restrain him if he resisted, held Ralph steady as he made to moved from the shelter. She wanted nothing more than to clutch against the chief she believed could protect her from the thing she saw, yet refrained, her fingers wrapped around his forearm instead. She felt fresh tears in her eyes.

"You can't go out- it's horrible!"

Ralph shoved her off. She bit her lip and said nothing, returning to her brother's embrace. She pressed her teeth into her lip deeper, willing herself not to cry, to not show weakness in front of a myriad of boys. Her tears faltered, resting unshed. Ralph spoke to the boy sitting up and putting on his glasses.

"Piggy- where are the spears?"

Piggy gazed about, disoriented from the abrupt rising.

"I can hear the twins-"

"Sam 'n Eric, I know. Quiet then. Lie still."

The boy settled back. Ralph turned to the twins.

"You saw the beast, you say?"

"Yes-"

"-on the mountain-"

"-it chased us-"

Sam and Eric began to recount the terror of their encounter. They described how the thing yawned upright, the horrific sounds it made, and how it chased them into the forest. Eric turned and showed where its claws had raked him, his shirt sliced with thin rips.

"This is where it snagged me, right on the back."

Ralph shivered at the display but was quiet. He crept forward and peeked out of the shelter, much like a rabbit checking for a fox. The sky was now all soft pinks and greys, the clouds painted in pastels, the growing light enough to give the chief's face a hallowed shadow. Ralph ducted back inside hurriedly, taking himself away from the dangers of outside. He remained near the entrance, burdened by the obligation of protection.

"Sam 'n Eric," he said, no clipped tone in his words. The lack of it almost made it seem like it was there. "Call them to an assembly. Quietly. Go on. Tell them to bring spears."

The twins nodded and bundled together. They only had each other as they walked across the cool sand, their shadows blurred at their feet like dark watercolors. They lowed themselves and ducked their heads into the dusk of the other shelter.

Roger, the boy nearest to the entry, was awake instantly, like he had been expecting a disturbance. His chilling amber eyes looked between the two and raised gooseflesh on their backs.

Eric swallowed and braved to speak.

"Ralph is calling an assembly. Now. He says to bring spears."

Roger sat up, stretching casually.

"All right."

"We saw the beast."

Sam had finally found her voice. She felt the dark boy's gaze cutting into her, his blank expression unnerving. She nestled closer to her brother, Eric seeming to have confused interest at Roger's reaction rather than discomfort. Roger spoke again.

"All right."

He crawled through the leaves and began to wake the others. Sam and Eric left immediately, going to the last shelter brimming with littluns. There was some protest to being awoke so early, the complaints turning to crying when they heard talk of the beast. They left the shelter for the platform as an adhered group, quickly putting themselves in the center of the circle of older boys with sharpened sticks. Sam and Eric released each other when they reached Ralph.

Figuring that the trumpet of the conch would be terrible to hear with tired ears, the chief lifted the shell instead, the assembly nodding in understanding. A clear patch of sunlight was hitting the meeting platform directly, giving the boys some sense of comfort with its warmth. The light flashed over the conch as it was passed to Eric.

Sam touched the conch as well, glancing at Ralph before he pulled his hands away. His eyes held a strange kind of sadness: a weary and startling type of dread, very aged in nature. Her gaze moved up to his fair hair, a ray of light fanning above him like a golden crown. Sam felt queerly indebted to admire this kingly presentation, her attention taken away as her brother spoke.

"We've seen the beast with our own eyes. No- we weren't asleep-"

"We'd just woken up," Sam continued. "And went to tend the fire. It rose up from the rocks-"

"It was furry. There was something moving behind its head- wings. The beast moved too-"

"That was awful. It kind of sat up-"

"The fire was bright-"

"We'd just made it up-"

"-more sticks on-"

"There were eyes-"

"Teeth-"

"Claws-"

"We ran as fast as we could-"

"Bashed into things-"

"The beast followed us-"

"I saw it slinking behind the trees-"

Eric shuddered. "Even touched me-"

Ralph interrupted suddenly. In the light of day he could see the red marks crossing Eric's face from where the creepers had torn him during his fall and rescue. Ralph pointed and asked:

"How did you do that?"

Eric touched his face tenderly.

"I'm all rough. Am I bleeding?"

His fingers came away chrisom. Sam whirled Eric around to face her, examining what she could not see before.

"From when you fell-"

She was cut off as a littlun began sobbing. Having one she loved so much injured, with fault partially to her for riving him so carelessly from the creepers, made her want to cry as well, but she did not for she could not, not on this island of men. She instead batted the trickles of blood from his face with her sleeve, staining the white cloth red.

Around the twins, the older boys made a defensive eyelet. Their spears faced outwards, prepared for this beast they feared.

"This'll be a real hunt!" Jack shouted to be heard all around the platform. "Who'll come?"

Ralph made a noise of impatience at Jack's outburst.

"These spears are made of wood. Don't be silly."

Jack faced the chief at the challenge.

"Frightened?"

"'Course I'm frightened," he admitted shamelessly, gesturing to Sam and Eric and the others to show that everyone was. "Who wouldn't be?"

Ralph sighed, turning to the twins a last time.

"I suppose you aren't pulling our legs?"

Their answer fell in one beat.

"No, never."

It was definitive. A murmur rose from the boys and dropped into cold silence. Piggy came and took the conch from Eric.

"Couldn't we- kind of- stay here? Maybe the beast won't come near us."

Ralph looked like he wanted to scream in exasperation at the unreasonable notion. He did not, however, calming his composure and forcing his voice level.

"Stay here? And be cramped into this bit of island, always on the lookout? How should we get our food? And what about the fire?"

"Lets be moving," Jack said and stomped, "we're wasting time."

Sam and Eric did not think there to be so little in time to waste. Ralph stood firm and contradicted Jack.

"No we're not. What about the littluns?"

"Sucks to the littluns!" Jack said violently. A littlun, Henry, whined, Ralph sparing him a glance of sympathy.

"Someone's got to look after them."

"Nobody has so far."

"There was no need! Now there is. Piggy'll look after them."

Jack sneered. "That's right. Keep Piggy out of danger."

"Have some sense," Ralph said lowly. "What can Piggy do with only one eye?"

Sam and Eric felt the argument escalating and held each other again. Knowing fully well that he was threatening Jack's pride, Ralph stepped closer, bravely so.

"And another thing," the chief continued. "You can't have an ordinary hunt because the beast doesn't leave tracks. If it did you'd seen them. For all we know, the beast may swing through the trees like what's its name."

There was a hum of confirmation and Jack flushed pink. Piggy nodded, rubbing his one lens on his scuffed shirt. He cradled the conch with both arms.

"How about us, Ralph?" he coughed before clarifying. "I mean- how about us? Suppose the beast comes when you're all away. I can't see proper, and if I get scared-"

Jack did as he always did when he was attacked: venting his frustration on those weaker than himself, pinning them with his hateful blame. He stopped Piggy with a snarl.

"You're always scared."

Piggy coughed again. "I got the conch-"

"Conch! Conch!" Jack mocked the very word. "We don't need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It's time some people knew they've got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us."

Sam felt a sudden urge to slap Jack for his insolence. Eric, who was easier to rile than his sister although no more willing to start conflict, tightened his hold when she moved with malicious intent. He shook his head and whispered.

"Let Ralph handle it."

And handle it Ralph did. He spoke with all the authority he had, his cheeks hot and red. His order was simple:

"You haven't got the conch. Sit down."

The display of greater power paled Jack. He dipped his pallid face, but did not sit down.

"This is a hunter's job." The statement was yielding.

"This is more than a hunter's job," Ralph said, swaying his opinion into favor. Piggy appeared beside him, handed him the conch, and moved back, sitting on a fallen palm. His breathing was labored.

"Because you can't track the beast," the chief persisted. "And don't you want to be rescued?"

The assembly looked on as Ralph raised the conch.

"Don't you all want to be rescued?"

Ralph lowered the great shell, turning to Jack. A crack faltered the tall boy's proud posture.

"I said before, the fire is the main thing. Now the fire must be out-" Ralph heaved a tired sigh, effective for his argument- "Hasn't anyone got any sense? We've got to relight that fire. You never thought of that, Jack, did you? Or don't any of you want to be rescued?"

The boys buzzed in agreement to this. Sam began to cool as Jack was shamed, publically, for his brash haste, the smack he deserved coming from embarrassment. She heard Piggy gasp in what she believed to be relief. Ralph quieted the assembly and adopted a nicer tone.

"Now think, Jack. Is there anywhere on the island you haven't been?"

Jack hesitated a moment. He replied begrudgingly.

"There's only- but of course!" he lightened with excitement. "You remember? The tail-end part, where the rocks are all piled up. I've been near there. The rock makes a sort of bridge. There's only one way up."

"And the thing might live there," someone added.

Ralph stilled the platform as clamor rose.

"Quiet! All right. That's where we'll look. If the beast isn't there we'll go up the mountain and look; and light the fire."

"Let's go," Jack agreed in an attempt to return his good favor.

"We'll eat first. Then go," Ralph corrected. He paused, running a hand through his fair hair. The assembly waited.

"We'd better take spears."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ralph/Sam ship shall be called Ram.


	5. The Calydonian Boar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eric: *Kissin' Kate Barlow voice* Sam... It's so hot, Sam, but I feel so cold...  
> Sam: I can fix that.  
> (Also, someone draw me Sam as Atalanta please.)

**The Calydonian Boar**

"Well. So long."

There was no cinematic intensity to the words. They were said just as they were: plain, casual. And then Ralph left, going to find a beast that may or may not be.

Sam gripped her spear fiercely. Unlike the other boys, to her there was no doubt about the beast, no comfort to be gained with the light of day. The fear of the beast from her and her brother's flight for their lives down the mountain was too fresh, too certain to be dismissed. She and Eric were the ones reminded of their fragile mortally and that type of fright is not easily forgotten.

"Sam."

Sam blinked awake from her thoughts. Her hand relaxed as she noticed the bark from the spear searing into her skin, the stiffness in her shoulder easing likewise. She turned about and found her worried brother.

Eric was very fixed about his opinion on Sam going with the others to hunt the beast. He knew she was as tired and scared as he was, and sore from the pig hunt, and wanted her to stay behind ever so; but knew also he could not make her, not while he went along. She would never allow her brother to go off into danger alone, nor for the others on the island to see her as weak as Piggy and the littluns. They were undeniably cruel, and would be to her if she bid to remain at the lagoon.

"Eric."

She sanctioned him to touch her. There was comfort in his aura of big brother protectiveness, both for herself and him. Eric shuffled forward in the long grass and whispered.

"Are you all right?"

Sam nodded once. Ahead, Ralph looked away from the seemingly infinite chasms of water to the great towering of rock. He moved forward, as it appeared, effortlessly, fearlessly, like a true chief would. He paused to look at the beginning of the high cliff before disappearing around the breadth of it.

A wordless noise came from Jack. As if that were an answer or an excuse, he stood from hiding, trotting forward to cross the isthmus in blatant apathy to the chief's orders to linger among the grass. There was an uneasy shift in the blades as they watched Jack leave to follow Ralph.

The hunters waited and did not speak. They were silent to hear even the slightest deathly outcry that ultimately did not come. Instead, after a moment, the two boys clammered atop the utmost peak, unharmed. They mulled about and motioned at one another, speaking an inaudible conversation.

There was a confusion of hierarchy in the grass. It was eventually Maurice who went first, then Roger, the others following behind. Eased by the lack of beast at this place on the island, Sam and Eric crossed the neck of land to the tail-end of the island, looping around the tall cliff like Ralph and Jack had done. They saw the group exploring this interesting stacking of stone. They climbed every clump of rock they could find footholds in, shouted at each other across the way, and searched the shallow crevasses between boulders. Ralph remained at the highest spire, leaning on his spear with a hard and thoughtful look on his face.

Sam and Eric felt no desire to bother him. The twins walked near the edge of the sea, watching the spray of the water as it smacked into the rock. Eric paused and crouched closer as he found a calmer coven down the cliff face dotted with colorful sea life. He observed the weed and clinging animals moving with the wash of the ocean.

Uninterested, Sam drifted away from the display. She found a cupping in the rock that attracted her. It was too shallow or open to be a cave, with only an overhang as the ceiling. Sharp bits of rock and bird droppings clotted with dried grass decorated the ground under the overhang. Sam crouched on her haunches to examine a small herb growing in a sparse patch of soil.

The girl was startled by the closing of a great pair of wings. She made the quietest of peeps as she fell back, her bottom landing painfully on the broken rock. An albatross, with no regard to Sam or her surprise, picked the plant with his gleaming beak. He spread the wings larger than Sam herself again, took off, circled back, and fluttered to a stop atop the overhang. Sam stood quickly and shuffled backwards, craning her neck to view the bird on the overhang.

There was another albatross on a shell of mud. The first nestled his beak underneath her feathered breast, placing the picked herb to cushion her seat. He called a cry that almost sounded like Eric pricking the lowest note on his viola before he was off, driving from the cliff to fly across the sea.

The nesting albatross watched Sam. If she had to give her look a name, she would think it to be curious, careful, not malicious in any way. The albatross was oddly expressive, even cocking her head in a critical manner. Sam smiled at the bird and the albatross shifted for the sake of modesty.

"Isn't this a wizard place for a fort?"

All the feathers on the albatross flared. Sam took her eyes from her to notice Jack, the boy coming around the body of a heavy boulder.

The way he spoke and finally stilled made Sam feel in some way he was attacking her. He stood close to her, eager for her agreement, and his overshadowing made her feel like she was almost bullied into giving it. The vulnerability she also felt with her brother so far down the lip of the cliff was raw and frightening. She would not, however, allow Jack to know of her helplessness and did not look back or call out for Eric.

Sam brushed the hair from her eyes. It was now as long as it had been before her last haircut, although not nearly as neat, and she had half a mind to take a sharp shell and saw it off. Jack was close enough that she could see the unkempt twines in his own hair and the streaks of old face paint and dirt over his skin. She swallowed and leveled her voice to speak.

"No," she said, shaking her head. She pointed upwards. "Some birds nest here. It's'a albatross, I think."

The bird puffed further and raised her incredible wingspan as Jack looked up at her. He scowled at the mother bird and she cried out in warning.

"Bollocks to the birds!" He all but snarled at Sam. He made violent gestures towards her and Sam stared at his sudden anger. "They can find a new nest. There are lots of tottering rocks here and even a trickle of fresh water, over there. We could make this like a fort, like a castle."

Sam was not Ralph: it was not her responsibility to silence or indulge Jack's love of conflict. She glanced to the albatross desperate to protect her one egg before returning her look to Jack, meeting his eyes of hateful blue.

"No," she stated simply. "No. This is not a good place for a fort, or a castle, or whatever. It's not."

That was her concluding scathe. Sam would never be on Jack's side, at least if she could help it, and this fact offended Jack, insulted him even. He held sway over so much, but not over her. She was her own person and his pride made him forget that.

"Fine," he said. Sam felt her hairs stand. "All right. Fine."

And he left. Sam waited until he was out of sight before dashing to her brother, clustering to his side. He looked away from the sea to heed his sister, blinking in question. Sam, trying to convey everything that had happened and how she felt, fumbled, gesticulating with her hands.

"Jack- I- He- He said-"

An explosion terrified them both. Eric did the instinctive thing and held his sister, Sam permitting the arm around her waist. Across the rocks, on the other edge of the cliff, a clamor was upheld. It consisted of shouts and hollers from triumphant boys. The red boulder they pushed into the sea thundered and cracked a final time, rolling to a halt under the bubbling waves to never be seen again.

"Stop it! Stop it!"

The voice belonged to Ralph. Sam and Eric glanced fleetingly at one another before falling apart, hurrying to join the commotion. Sam did not notice the bird scared from her nest.

The boys who were only moments before so tumultous were now struck silent. Ralph stood before them, the hand gripping the hair from his face white with tension. Scorching, baffled anger stiffened his frame and quivered in his breath.

"Smoke," Ralph spoke, thick and dark. "We want smoke. And you go wasting your time. You roll rocks."

Roger offered a resistance. It was the first time Sam or Eric had seen the presence of fury in his eyes, and his sudden rage was sharp.

"We've got plenty of time!"

A hostile glint sparked and was gone. Eric recognized it as the look he had when he shoved his spear into the sow's spine to paralyze her.

Ralph was not intimidated, either by ignorance or honest courage. He motioned outwards.

"We'll go to the mountain."

The others began to shout their opposition. They who had not interacted with the beast lost their fear of it idlely, and even doubted of its existence in some silly, half-sensible part of themselves.

A hot sense of panic overcame Sam. She remembered the mountain, the raining gravel, the claws, the chase, the screams. She remembered how Eric fell like a china plate from the top shelf, tumbling and cracking and ripping and breaking. She remembered how she truly felt like she was going to die as she cried and dug her brother from the creepers.

She would always save him first: never herself.

Sam reached out to Eric for her own comfort. Surprised by this display of need in weakness, he interlaced their fingers softly, hanging their dominant hands together at their sides. Sam made no motion or word of gratitude. She did not need to.

"Jack. The beast might be on the other side."

The twins focused on Ralph. The boy shifted on his feet, trying to think of a way to sweeten the invitation. He was never good at ways of persuasion.

"You can lead again. You've been."

Jack would never agree to such a favor at Ralph's suggestion. Jack Merridew did what he alone thought was best and what he alone could take credit for.

"We could go by the shore," Jack said. "There's fruit."

Ralph gave Jack a look of frustration. The other boys began their own babble of opinions, aggravating the chief further.

"Why can't we stay here for a bit?"

"That's right."

"Let's have a fort."

"There's no food here," Ralph interrupted to argue, "and no shelter. Not much fresh water."

"This would make a wizard fort."

"We can roll rocks."

"Right on the bridge."

"I say we go on!" Ralph ordered over the noise. "We've got to make certain. We'll go now."

"Let's stay here-"

"Back to the shelter-"

"I'm tired-"

"No!"

Ralph struck his hand against the rock beside Eric. The hit was close enough that Eric jumped sideways, knocking against his sister. Sam moved to accommodate their new proximity and said nothing. She squeezed their connected hands to check his state of being and he squeezed back a confirmation.

"I'm chief," Ralph affirmed. His knuckles ran red and dripped onto the red rock. "We've got to make certain. Can't you see the mountain? There's no signal showing. There may be a ship out there. Are you all off your rockers?"

There was silence.

Wordlessly, Jack moved to take the lead, walking towards the bridge to the island. As he passed Sam and Eric, he gazed at Sam. It was a quick, evil glance, disgusted and malevolent in nature, and the girl was alarmed by it. Eric felt a chill of warning grace his spine and he recalled the first day, on the platform, when Jack had seen Sam sitting in the sand while he perched on a log in his dark cloak and choir cap. His feelings of hatred at Eric and his sister's unbreakable closeness had matured since then, rubbed and irritated him as they chafed and grew, and led up to his awful look.

Eric stepped before his sister. It was a weak act of confrontation, for Jack looked away as soon as Eric moved. He reached the neck of land and the others made to follow.

Jack knew Sam was different. He just did not know how she was.

.

The pig-run was a festered strip of sand and mud that ran between the bumbles of rock by the water and tight-knotted creepers lining the jungle. The patches of the path wetted by the spray of the sea began to steam at midday as the sun rose to its highest point. Ralph told the twins to run ahead and tell Jack to stop for fruit when next they came to suitable trees, but Eric gave his sister a deciding look and went alone. Sam continued to walk with Ralph and he said nothing to her.

Eric stood Sam on his shoulders to aid in her climb of the fruit trees. As he hoisted her up, he noticed with a little fluttering despair how thin she had become. All her curve and softness was whittled away to blunt muscle and bone. He saw the points of her shoulder blades move under her skin beaten dark like leather; here and there were spots of blistering that had healed. He remembered, although it seemed so long ago, how in the winter the undersides of Sam's arms would turn white as milk. Then in the summer she would tan a pleasant, golden shade, nothing like this brown of dirt and sweat and deep sun.

Sam bowed from the tree and spoke.

"Here."

Eric collected the offered fruit, taking his mind away from his sudden noticing of the gradual changes. He placed it to the side to help his sister from the tree, the girl muting a whine as he touched a particularly sore muscle. He held her for a moment to let the pain reside.

"Eric, you're bleeding."

Eric looked between them. Indeed, a cut across his chest was agitated into bleeding once again, a slice of red tainting his already filthy clothing. Sam sighed, opened his shirt, and began to dab at his collar bone with the sleeve already dried brown from cleaning his scratched face.

"You need to be more careful."

Eric said nothing. A thickness formed in his throat from the tender statement, and he swallowed and nodded. He eventually spoke as Sam buttoned up his shirt.

"I love you, Sam."

Sam looked up from her work. She stared at him, her hands falling.

"And I love you, Eric. Big brother."

Her words were sincere. Eric smiled, embraced her swiftly and softly, not irritating either of their injuries, and Sam hugged him in return. She would never be embarrassed of her love for Eric.

They carried the fruit to sit with the others in the shade. Jack watched them sidelong, but it was not a new gaze: it was as if he had been watching them for a long time. Sam and Eric sat far from Jack and with their backs turned.

The sibling's immediate companion was Simon, although neither spoke with him. Sam gave him a smile he did not seem to notice. A conflicted gloss was in his downcast eyes as he ate the flesh of the fruit by the mouthful, almost as if he were thirsty and not hungry. Sam split a coconut on the face of a nearby rock and provided Eric half of the soupy insides.

As the hunters finished their meal of fruit, Sam noticed Simon perk aware from his silence. Ralph was walking down towards the sea and Simon moved to follow him, trotting after the chief to the rocks. Sam looked away from this curious display when Eric called for her attention. He presented his hand and assisted Sam standing. They walked a little further down the pig-run and entered the jungle.

Sam found a shallow pool in the roots of a tree to wash her face with while Eric did his business. She scrubbed away the sticky and salty grime from her cheeks, even going as far as to wet the hot skin on her neck. In the muted reflexion of the pool she saw a feather of grass stuck in her long hair and removed it. She stared at the blade, wondering why no one thought to mention it.

"Washing up, eh?"

Eric dropped beside her on hands and knees. He ran his hands through the water, careful not to touch any of his cuts as he cleaned around his mouth.

"A little," she said, releasing the grass blade to the forest floor. She then giggled. "Mummy'd go barmy if she knew how dirty we are."

"'Specialy you," Eric agreed. "She'd always get sore when you'd get dirty."

"That's 'cause it's 'not proper for a young lady to do'," Sam imitated their mother's strict voice. "'Samantha Jennifer Coleman, you know better than to act like such a ruffian.'"

For a moment they remembered the comical fierceness of their beloved mother who was so small and young instead of their distance from her and laughed. The thought of their mother also temporarily overtook that of beasts, and the twins jumped up to engage in a play of mocking her.

"'Don't eat so many cookies, Eric-'"

"'Keep your dress clean, Samantha-'"

"'Pick up your books-'"

"'Do your schoolwork-'"

"'Pray before bed-'"

"'Finish your peas-'"

"' _And how dare you cut your hair, Samantha!'"_

Sam and Eric crashed together, shrieking with laughter. The thought of home comforted them, and for a brief time they were not frightened and hopeless.

.

When Sam and Eric returned from the jungle, there was a commotion of boys along the pig-run. Jack had found a mound of pig scat and this arose a hubbub in the hunters. Jack turned from investigating the droppings to look at Ralph.

"Ralph- we need meat even if we are hunting the other thing."

A shiver of annoyance at Jack's unquenchable desire to hunt bristled Ralph, but he also saw this as an opportunity to get something done. He nodded.

"If you mean going the right way, we'll hunt."

Jack stood fervently and took to leading the procession. Not wanting to linger on her fear of the mentioned beast, Sam allowed the excitement of the hunt to overtake her. She glanced to her brother, grinning. Eric looked back with worry.

"You are in no shape for a hunt," he whispered so only Sam would hear. She scowled at him.

"I'm not all rough like you are," she insisted, peeved by his doubt of her endurance. "I'm just a tad sore. And besides, we probably won't run into anything anyway."

Eric frowned at her harsh persistence. He did not understand Sam's necessity to hunt to keep the beast from mind. He merely jogged beside her, at odds with her choice.

A sound in the creepers drew Jack's notice. He stopped, along with the procession, peering into the jungle and nudging aside foliage with his spear. Ralph leaned against a tree and watched the hunters with a sort of dreaming detachment.

Sam engaged herself entirely into searching the creepers. Eric, for the sake of sport, followed her example. He mixed his spear in the thick bushes, snapping vines and knocking against rocks. Sam backed away to continue in a different area.

Eric heard a deep grunt from inside the creepers. His blood grew cold and he felt a great urgency to warn his sister. He reached for her as she walked away and spoke hastily.

"Sam-"

A boar burst from the undergrowth. The hunters scattered away from its sharp tusks, yelling and throwing themselves out of its path. The boar skirted around Jack, the boy tumbling over with a shout. The boar tossed its head and continued on.

Before Eric could even think to react, Sam was on the move. He watched in frozen bewilderment as Sam ran towards the boar, screaming and with her weapon poised to kill. She threw her wooden spear and struck the boar.

Her aim was poor and the flimsy stick only stuck into the animal's hide. The boar squealed in pain nevertheless, vering for Ralph. The boy moved from the tree and lifted his own spear in attack. Ever so calmly he tossed the spear, the point burrowing into the charging creature's snout. It gave another shrill call before turning for the jungle, crashing through the bushes to escape.

The need for blood prompted Sam to tear into the creepers to follow the pig. She ripped through the thorny plants, discovering a hidden pig-run. The boar was racing along the thin track, singing notes of pain as the attached spears bounced about.

Sam gave chase to the creature. She pursued the animal, indifferent to the protruding growth whipping at her body. Her throat burned and the logic of how she had not run for so long a time in weeks and could not possible catch the boar or kill it barehanded passed so quickly it was ignored.

For a while, for as long as she ran after the boar, she was the hunter and not the hunted. For a fleeting, euphoric moment her only trouble in life was the wounded boar and her only goal to spill its blood.

" _Sam!"_

And suddenly the boar was gone. Sam listened as it progressed into the jungle, shrieking and stumbling through the foliage. Her body was still aside from her hard breathing, although she could not remember stopping. Whatever insane desire to murder and hurt she had dispersed and she blinked in confusion.

"Sam..."

Sam was aware of the fingers locked around a sore spot on her arm. She looked back to find the horrific sight.

Eric was bloodied anew. His breathing was so heavy that he wheezed and hissed and coughed, his hold faltering as he struggled. A black ache consumed Sam's whole being as he stared at her with tears in his eyes.

"S-Sam..."

"Eric."

"You're bleeding."

Sam looked down at her chest. Red scratches that matched her brother's painted her chest, her already tattered shirt split by more openings. The dark part of her surfaced again, and she bared her teeth, growling at the array.

"I drew first blood. The boar was mine."

Her voice was so low it was almost not her own. Eric got chills as he saw the bloodlust akin to that of Roger or Jack in his little sister's eyes. He squeezed her arm and she cried out.

"Sam. You need to stop."

"I- The boar-"

"Sam."

The anger disappeared and the guilt returned, tenfold. It was not the boar who had driven Eric to injure himself running through the creepers: it was Sam, in her fit of foolish fantasy and entitlement. She had allowed her fear of the beast to cloud her reasoning, and in turn harmed Eric for it.

Tears burned the cuts on her face. She wiped at them haughtingly, a single sob escaping her. She whined because she hurt and hid her face.

"I'm sorry, Eric- I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

He moved the hands from her face. She saw only the utmost care in his expression, a deep love that no gash to his skin could take away. He took his sleeve and tended to her bleeding wounds.

"It's all right, Sam."

Sam keened once in reply. She blinked the wetness from her lashes, using her unbloodied sleeve to clean Eric's cuts.

.

Eric was rather accepting of the animalistic nature he saw in his sister, or this is how Sam thought: he nursed her bleeding, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and walked hand-in-hand with her back to the other hunters. They had not run as far into the jungle as Sam believed they had, and she forced herself to stop sniveling before she was finished completely. Eric gripped her hand fiercely as she shut away how awful she felt.

When they reached the beach, the area was vacant. Clumsy footprints lead down the sand, turning into the jungle to reveal another, more open pig-run that ran sidelong of the other. It followed parallel to the thinner pig-run for a few meters before curving back to the sea, doubling-back around to end behind a high assortment of red rock. Sam and Eric wove along the path.

"Make a ring!"

The voice belonged to Jack. Sam and Eric gazed at one another before hurrying towards the growing uproar.

The numerous boys were struggling about the open place by the sea in a cluster. The group was centered around a single boy on hands and knees, Robert squealing and laughing to mock the fright of a hunted pig. The dull end of a spear hit his back and he yelped.

"Ow! Stop it! You're hurting!"

His pleas did not register in the frenzied boys. They heard only the final cries of a dying pig, and soon more spears were jabbed at Robert. He fought to stand upright, but was always beaten down, his backside forced flat upon the sand. Jack's order rose above the noise of the others.

"Hold him!"

His limbs were pinned. Ralph cavorted up to Eric, suddenly. Eric was startled by the bloody hunger in his typically stern expression.

Ralph's voice was unusually raspy.

"Eric- your spear-"

"But-"

Ralph ripped the spear from Eric's grasp. Now impervious of the twins, Ralph rejoined the mix, wrestling about to get closer to the struggling Robert. Many voices rang in unison.

"Kill him! Kill him!"

And then Robert screamed. With that scream, Sam remembered the shrill cry of a withering, bleeding pig; and felt the red, evil part of her rise again. The urge to rush at Robert and claw at his skin until he was torn and bloody was incredible. And Eric, without the worry for his sister to dominate his thoughts, felt the same murderous rage, felt the same craving to overpower the weaker life and a take it away chill his body with pleasure.

Sam and Eric ran into the pile together. They shoved about the hunters in a desperate attempt to reach Robert, their wounds troubled painfully as they were jostled. The chanting of the boys pitched to its zenith.

" _Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!"_

Sam and Eric crooned as if they were one manic mind.

" _Kill the pig! Spill his blood! Bash him in! Kill him! Kill him!"_

They shrieked as Jack entered the center of the circle. He straddled Robert and thrust his head back by his hair, leaving his soft neck exposed. He raised his knife high enough that it flashed white in the sunlight.

Everyone howled.

" _Kill the pig! Kill him!"_

Jack's knife came down. Robert screamed his final, deathly screech as the crowd cheered and wailed in celebration of his end. Then they fell into silence, breathing heavily. Robert's humiliated hiccups could be heard over their heaving. He sat up as Jack rolled off of him, scrubbing the tears from his face.

"Oh, my bum!" He cried. Bill assured him by ruffing his hair and grinning. Jack brushed him off entirely.

"That was a good game."

Sense seemed to come back to them at the statement. Sam came to realize her horrid compulsions, and the regret of her behavior returned. She had allowed the unbelievably shameful part of her to act without even a second thought, and her childish lack of self-control stung her pride. Eric looked to her and she turned her eyes away in disgrace. She had been foolish not once, but twice in the same manner.

"Just a game," ever-valiant Ralph tried to reason. "I got jolly badly hurt at ruggar once."

But they all knew it was not a game. Games had rules, and people to watch over them, and what they had done had neither. They had attacked another person, and the extent they could have hurt him was limitless. It was no more a game than a fight in the schoolyard.

Yet no one wanted to be at fault. As so, they tried to pretend it was indeed a game.

"We ought to have a drum," Maurice suggested, "then we could do it properly."

Ralph looked to him, wary.

"How properly?"

"I dunno," he rubbed his head. "You want a fire, I think, and a drum, and you keep time to the drum."

"You want a pig, like a real hunt," said Roger.

"Or someone to pretend," Jack said casually, sticking his knife back in the sheath. "You could get someone to dress up as a pig and then he could act- you know, pretend to knock me over and all that."

He flipped his arm to show the ragged mark the boar had left. Not wanting another to experience what he had, Robert spoke up.

"You want a real pig, because you've got to kill him," Robert said. He touched a tender spot on his back.

"Use a littlun," Jack said, amused. The hunters laughed.

Sam felt sick. She also felt an overwhelming need to cry and a longing for her mother, but made no move to show this. She only looked at her hands and how they were shaking.

Eric took the left one from her. Surprised by his forcefulness, Sam met his eyes. She saw the fear in his expression.

But it was not as if he were afraid of her, like before, but as if he were afraid of himself. Eric nodded once and Sam understood.

He was trying to say they, themselves, could be as barbaric as Jack.

.

The group continued towards the mountain. The pig-run was more haphazard now: it would loop into the jungle and come out again, in some lengths even going down to the boulders by the sea. The tracking of the path was slow and the climb of the rocks even more so. They stopped by a trickle of fresh water and drank, eating fruit from near-by trees.

When it became apparent that they would not reach the mountain until nightfall, Ralph made the decision for someone to go to the lagoon and tell Piggy and the littluns. The hunters resisted this, for the coming night made the fear of the beast come again. They also had no desire to find their way through the dark forest, alone. Ralph knew Sam would not leave Eric, nor Eric her, and so did not volunteer them.

Simon, who did not fear the jungle or the beast, went willingly. Having one he hated so much concerned for antagonized Jack, so that he quarreled with Ralph and had to be put in his place. Ralph took to leading while Jack sulked behind.

The dark of night caused the boys to walk close together, and the first stars were rising when they reached the base of the mountain. Sam and Eric pressed near when they saw the black, terrible shape against the sky.

With the utter darkness clear, Ralph thought, coming to a conclusion.

"We'll go straight across to the platform and climb tomorrow."

This eased Sam and Eric, and the others agreed to climb when the fear of night was gone.

Jack, however, persisted.

"If you're frightened of course-"

Ralph, whose job as chief was to be not frightened, turned.

"Who went first on the Castle Rock?"

"I went too," Jack challenge. "And that was daylight."

"All right," Ralph said. He faced the others. "Who wants to climb the mountain now?"

There was no answer.

"Samneric? What about you?"

It was unfair of him to ask, really, but in order to prove to Jack the silliness of climbing the mountain in the dark he had to, and trusted that the ones who had only that morning been scared from the mountain to disagree.

Sam and Eric did not want to disappoint their chief, yet more-so did not want to find the beast they had seen on the dark mountain and be eaten alive. They shuffled back. Eric found an excuse to not admit their fear and began.

"We ought to go an' tell Piggy-"

"-yes, tell Piggy that-"

"But Simon went!"

"We ought to tell Piggy- in case-"

Satisfied with their answer, Ralph asked Robert and Bill.

"Robert? Bill?"

"No- I'm tired-"

"Me too, let's go tomorrow-"

The hunters moved for the platform, and Sam and Eric followed. Ralph gestured at the procession.

"You see?"

"I'm going up the mountain," Jack spat at Ralph. He swiped his spear and pointed to the top, furious. "I'm going up the mountain to look for the beast- now."

He paused.

"Coming?"

The word was so sour that Sam stopped her brother to look back. She could see the outline of the two boys in the dark, and saw that Jack was bowing over Ralph like he had done to her. The threat was present in his voice and composure, and everyone waited to watch this display.

"I don't mind."

Ralph's response was so plain and easy Jack's ferociousness was almost embarrassing. Taunted, Jack continued his attack on Ralph's dominance.

"If you don't mind, of course."

"Oh, not at all."

Jack grumbled lowly. Damaged and humbled, he leaned away from the greater power.

"Well then-"

His response was quiet. He drifted towards the mountain, Ralph accompanying him without any further plans to stigmatize him. His reputation upheld, Ralph hesitated as his reason returned. He overlooked the hunters.

"We're silly. Why should only two go? If we find anything, two won't be enough."

Sam and Eric backed away immediately. A form detached from the pack and met the two on the rising slope. He said nothing until Ralph spoke.

"Roger?"

"Yes."

Ralph nodded. "That's three, then."

They made to climb the ashen side of the mountain. The hunters watched them until their shadows disappeared and the only sign they were there was the fall of stones, and even that died in the wind. Sam and Eric hastened back to the shelters with the others.

Simon met them upon their arrival by peeking outside his shelter. Nothing was said as the older children entered their respective shelters, the choir boys fitting into one. Inseparable, Sam and Eric usually took the place in the shelter of those on fire watch, but knew there would be no space for them when Roger and Jack returned. With no desire to spent the night in the unbalanced shelter with the littluns, the twins took a spot in Ralph's with Piggy and Simon.

The brother and sister lie wrapped around one another, restless. They considered things, wondering what would happen if there was no beast atop the mountain. Sam shifted her head and whispered in Eric's ear.

"Suppose they don't find anything?" She inquired about what they both were thinking.

"There has to be a beast up there," Eric muttered. "Otherwise, what about the thing that chased us?"

"But what if there _isn't?"_

"Sam..."

"I don't want to be seen as silly. I get enough of that at home."

The mention of home made them gloomy and silent. Sam felt a feather-light touch on her shoulder and jolted. Eric, reacting to this, inched them away in a huddle. Simon pulled his hand back and sat up.

"Sorry," he said in his sweet, warm voice. "I don't think you're silly. I think you saw something on the mountain. But I don't think it was a beast."

Then, infuriatingly:

"I don't believe in the beast."

Sam's fear turned into bitter irritation. She flipped from her brother's hold, the leaves rattling like the wash of waves on the beach as she met Simon upright.

"Then you're daft," she hissed. "They're lots of beasts. They burn forests and hurt children and take you away from Mummy and Papa. They hide in the dark, and wait to tear you apart, like people do with words. Those are their teeth an' claws."

Simon shrunk away. "Then... Are we all beasts?"

"Yes, even you are."

" _Sam."_ Eric joined her as she overstepped a boundary. "Don't be shirty with him; he didn't do anything to you."

Sam crossed her arms and said nothing. Simon shook his head in the dark, reaching to touch Sam again. She did not swat him away.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

He sounded confused, and broken. He was upset by the fact he had upset her, and Sam suddenly felt horrid and to blame. She became distressed and reciprocated his touch to try to console her mishaps.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Sam said in that same, pleading tone she never meant to have with him yet always seemed to. "I'm sorry, for that."

"I-"

Screaming came from the forest. Alarmed, Sam drew up to Eric, her grip on Simon bringing him along. They bundled together as Ralph crashed into the shelter, startling Piggy awake.

"What's-?"

"Piggy!"

The chief's body was arched and shaking. He looked about the shelter before settling on Piggy.

"We saw it!" He said breathlessly. "The beast- on the mountain- we saw it!"

"Are you sure?" The boy putting on his spectacles asked.

"Yes! We saw it!"

Sam felt no elation. She felt hollow, and desperate, like she would have rather been silly and wrong than right.

She felt helpless.

She let go of the boys around her who could provide no comfort. She burrowed her face into her hands, covering the silent tears that fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Simon is such a wonderful flower child all like, "I don't believe in the beast!" while Sam is just like, "bITCH."


	6. Mother Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can one make Simon's death worse than it already was.
> 
> One tries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took out the Bill part that makes no sense, lmao.

**Mother Beast**

Sam had never been in so much pain in her entire life. Her joints and muscles burned hotly in remembrance to the pig she felled, her cuts ached deep and sore, and her stomach felt twisted and upset from lack of sleep. What little rest she had came fitfully and unwelcome, Eric equally disturbed beside her. Sam did not know if Ralph slept at all.

When the first light came, Sam left the shelter with a sick stomach, leaving Eric to doze. He came to her when the other boys began to rise.

"Here," Eric said when he returned, brave enough to search the dark and brooding forest for fruit, if only for Sam. "Eat this."

Eric crouched down. He was pale like cream in the light of the pink dawn, the shadows on his face soft like the shadows on the sand. Although the thought of food disgusted her, Sam took the pitted fruit, knowing the burden behind it.

"Thank you."

Her voice shivered in a cracked whisper. Concern deeper than bodily illness crossed Eric's face, and he pushed back Sam's long hair to examine her face; her scratches were crusted and rusty, and her cheeks ruddy in fever. His mouth shifted in a wordless expression.

"I'll get you some water."

Sam nodded, and he left. Sam ate the fruit out of necessity and nothing more, the pleasure of its sweetness long lost to her. She fiddled with the dove-shaped coticule in her pocket until Eric returned again with a coconut shell filled with water, both the twins holding it as Sam drank slowly.

Simon crept out of the jungle. With him came the sun, the orb a warm color breaking over the ocean waves and turning all the sky golden. Sam sensed the safety of day and wakefulness and at once had the hope to feel better.

"Thank you," Sam repeated, taking the shell wholly. "I think I am a bit better."

"Not feeling well?" Simon asked meekly.

Eric's lightness at his success turned prickly when Simon neared Sam while she was weak. Simon understood the threat of Eric protecting Sam with his big-brother posture and did not advance further.

"I..." Simon started to speak, then froze, Sam and Eric eyeing him curiously.

"I... wanted to apologize," he struggled to communicate the ideas that were so true in his head. "Because you are two people, not one person, and they treat you like that."

He motioned out with his fingers.

"You are Sam, and you are Eric."

Then, in a whisper:

"You are a girl, and you are a boy."

Sam and Eric looked at Simon half in astonishment and half in misunderstanding. Simon flushed and shivered, unable to explain how they were their own people and one was not better than the other.

"But," Eric tried to overcome the unachievable, "why are you sorry? You didn't make it that way."

"Someone has to be."

Simon's fragile demeanor contrasted the violent, ragged note that sounded. Atop the platform was a dark, whippet outline, which Sam and Eric though chillingly similar to the beast they saw on the mountain, calling the note of assembly.

Simon gave the twins his last apologetic look before dissolving in the light towards the platform to obey the signal. Eric steadied Sam and they joined the group flocking to the platform.

Jack was not the Son of the Rising Sun—not like Ralph. He was a hollow blot of a shape that made ugly music and sniveling littluns. He was awful in many ways, but Sam only understood part of this, and said:

"He's not right."

Eric nodded and agreed.

They sat with their backs to the sun and saw the platform in its entirety. The ease they felt when Ralph retook the conch was short-lived as Jack seized attention on his own.

"This meeting-"

"I called it," Jack had an absolute desire to interrupt.

"If you hadn't called it I should have," Ralph pointed out his senselessness. "You just blew the conch."

"Well, isn't that calling it?"

Ralph looked at Jack furiously. His blue eyes were almost snake-green behind the sheen of his hair and in the burning light of new morning.

"Oh, take it! Go on—talk!"

Ralph relinquished the conch and sat down miserably. Proud to shame and dethrone Ralph, Jack presented the conch like a trophy he had won fairly instead of stolen.

"I've called an assembly, because of a lot of things," Jack reminded them as a whole, and his posh tone angered Sam slightly. "First, you know now, we've seen the beast. We crawled up. We were only a few feet away. The beast sat up and looked at us. I don't know what it does. We don't even know what it is-"

Some littluns spoke up:

"The beast comes out of the sea-"

"Out of the dark-"

"Trees-"

Jack's look cut and drew blood.

"Quiet! You, listen! The beast is sitting up there, whatever it is-"

"Perhaps it's waiting-"

"Hunting-"

"Yes, hunting-"

"Hunting." Some bodily relish came to Jack with the idea. For Sam, the thought of the beast chasing and spearing her like a pig frightened her and caused her to draw up closer to Eric. She felt the same hopelessness she had in the dark shelter.

"Yes," Jack agreed, coolly. "The beast is a hunter. Only-" some sense and ferociousness came- "shut up! The next thing is that we couldn't kill it. And the next is that Ralph said my hunters are no good."

Ralph's woe left him, and he perked straight up.

"I never said that!"

"I've got the conch," Jack said mockingly, and Ralph hushed and reddened in his returned shame. "Ralph thinks you're cowards, running away from the boar and the beast. And that's not all."

Jack gripped inside the conch, almost as if he were going to break it in two.

"He's like Piggy. He says things like Piggy. He isn't a proper chief. He's a coward himself. On top, when Roger and me went on—he stayed back."

Ralph lept up like a fire, ready to defend his honor. Standing, he did not seem so small. He seemed a chief like everyone thought him to be.

"I went too!"

"After."

They stared in challenge. The hot air reminded Sam of the tremendous battle for masculine dominance she witness atop the mountain when the ship passed, and she suddenly felt out of place and utterly alone. For a moment, Eric's hold was only a mass and she only a girl. Until, Ralph said:

"I went on too, then I ran away. So did you."

Jack's voice darkened just enough, "Call me a coward then."

He turned, taking the conch out of view.

"He's not a hunter. He'd never have got us meat. He isn't perfect and we don't know anything about him. He just gives orders and expects people to obey for nothing. All this talk-"

"All this talk! Talk, talk!" Ralph's voice rang, terrible and true and lawful. "Who wanted it? Who called the meeting?"

For a flickering hesitation, Jack went still as struck death. Then, he turned, his face shadowed in red by the sun.

"All right," his words almost shivered in heart instead of malice. "All right."

The conch dropped in one hand, hanging at his side beside his knife disrespectfully.

"Who thinks Ralph oughtn't be chief?"

Jack looked across the lighted boys. In the heavy silence he snarled, urging:

"Hands up, whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?"

He was met with blank and unchanging silence. Sam and Eric witnessed the whole of his outcasting consume him, his throat jumping in humiliation.

"How many think-"

All knew it was tired and futile. Jack swallowed the hurt in his throat.

"All right then."

The conch dropped to the soft sand and grass. All felt a little titter of fear and shock as it landed, like a dove shot from the sky. Sam felt the wound personally, but she did not know why.

"I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you."

Tears filled his words and eyes.

"I'm not going to be a part of Ralph's lot—I'm going off by myself. He can catch his own pigs." He glanced at and away from the twins and the sun; Eric's skin prickled as if he had been hit. "Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too."

Jack disappeared towards the surf, running before his tears and disgrace could disarm him further. Ralph moved after him.

"Jack!"

Jack turned on him quickly. He stared, then spoke a hoarse almost-sob.

"-No!"

Jack hid his face. He ran from the platform, diving into the jungle now lit by the day. Ralph watched part of his leadership be ripped from him.

.

Like the others, Sam and Eric watched Jack until he could not be seen. When the episode dissolved into silence, Ralph dropped to the sand, gazing at the disturbed part of the jungle absently. In the silence, some frenzied need came over Sam so that she rushed away from the comfort of her brother to retrieve the conch from the ground. She cradled the shell like a dying animal, taking it to share in the safety her brother provided. Eric gave Sam a heartfelt look, but said nothing.

Sam did not notice that she had made a display until Piggy came up to her. The silent group observed Piggy motioning for the conch and Sam giving it up reluctantly because she knew it was the last thing they had.

"We can do without him. And—Ralph!" Piggy called to the boy bowed under his long hair. "I been talking, Ralph."

Ralph spoke without hearing Piggy.

"He'll come back. When the sun goes down he'll come."

"What?"

Ralph stuck his finger in the sand.

"Well there!"

Piggy sighed at Ralph's absent mind. He cleaned his one glass before continuing.

"We can do without Jack Merridew. There's others besides him on this island. But now we really got a beast, though I can't hardly believe it, we'll need to stay close to the platform; there'll be less need of him and his hunting. So now we can really decide on what's what."

"There's no help, Piggy," Ralph finally rose to attention. "Nothing to be done."

Piggy did not reply, sympathetic but saddened. Then, in the stillness, Simon moved, taking the conch while Piggy was in awe at his uncharacteristic bravery.

"Simon? What is it this time?"

By instinct Ralph took out his feelings on Simon, who was defenseless and different. The pointed aggression made Simon weaker than he already was. Sam's heart went out to him, but she could not find any courage to act upon it—not now.

"I thought," Simon attempted to use his baby-milk voice not meant for public speaking, "there might be something to do. Something we-"

He faltered, his knees bending together to stop himself from crumpling completely. His eyes found Piggy, then Sam, then Piggy again; perhaps he sought the intellectual certainty of Piggy and any trace of motherly or sisterly femininity Sam may have had. They were different, and that was comfort.

In the end, he faced the area near Piggy. He drew up everything he had in a breath and spoke.

"I think we ought to climb the mountain."

Sam covered her noise of helpless anguish, Eric too late to catch his own. Simon heard all the gasps of terror and looked down in guilt.

"What's the good of climbing up to this here beast when Ralph and the other two couldn't do nothing?" Piggy demanded.

Simon's answer carried on the wind.

"What else is there to do?"

Perfectly spent and ashamed, Simon gave Piggy the conch, leaving the group to sit over the bathing pool and watch his reflection. Now a little upset with him for suggesting such a horrendous idea and sorrowful, Sam and Eric engrossed themselves in other matters of the meeting.

"Now," Piggy cleared his throat and returned to another subject. "I said we could all do without a certain person. Now I say we got to decide on what can be done. And I think I could tell you what Ralph's going to say next. The most important thing on the island is the smoke and you can't have no smoke without a fire."

Ralph made a sigh of protest and reconsideration.

"No go, Piggy. We've got no fire. That thing sits up there—we'll have to stay here."

Piggy shifted the conch closer to himself.

"We got no fire on the mountain. But what's wrong with a fire down here? A fire could be built on them rocks. On the sand, even. We'd made smoke just the same."

"That's right!"

"Smoke!"

"By the bathing pool!"

The idea was grand. Ever resilient, ever wise Piggy had the will to put aside fear of the beast in favor of wits. Sam and Eric understood the presence of the fire as a protection, and Sam clasped Eric's hands joyfully like she had in Mr Michaels' barbershop so long ago.

"Eric!"

"Yes!"

"So we'll have a fire down here," Ralph envisioned. "We can build it just here between the bathing pool and platform. Of course-"

His eyebrows furrowed and he bit at his thumbnail.

"Of course the smoke won't show so much, not be seen so far away. But we needn't go near, near the-"

 _The beast._ There was no need to speak it. The group nodded and Ralph shook away the image.

"We'll build the fire now."

Progress to be done, Sam and Eric left their place on the platform. Whatever aliment Sam suffered earlier was minimized as the threat of the beast diminished. The littluns danced and picked up dried leaves as the twins worked near the familiarity of the scar, the wood here near the lagoon damp and hard to manage. The suitable bits they found were small limbs, which was lucky, for it they had found a log Sam may have been too sore to lift it. They took their tinder to the fire spot, and when they had enough, Piggy used his own glass to light the wood. The prospect of an at-home fire made Sam and Eric and many of the littluns cheer with half-false mania.

Inspecting the fire as a whole, Ralph decided it was too large.

"We'll have to have a small fire. This one's too big to keep up."

Piggy wiped his glass and saw for himself.

"We could experiment. We could find out how to make a small hot fire and then put green branches on to make smoke. Some of them leaves must be better for that than the others."

The light bits of tinder lit and burned out quickly. As the fire diminished into coals, the littluns lost their interest and went away to the shelters or the fruit trees, always close at hand but still so far. Sam and Eric knew that more kindling would be needed soon, so returned to the jungle, picking along the edge of the scar and platform and pushing at the underbrush to find any wood that did not require entering the dark jungle.

"Sam!" Eric noticed it first: the log slick with moss but not covered in creepers. "I think this one's good! It's solid."

Sure enough, when the wet bark was peeled back the log remained intact. The twins flushed and grinned together at their treasured find.

"Right! This will burn for a long while!" Sam worked away the overhanging foliage. "I can get Maurice to help us carry it."

"Where is Maurice?"

It was then they realized how he was gone. Him, and Robert, and Roger, and many other of the older boys were nowhere to be found. Sam and Eric were certain they had seen them a minute ago, but rethought and recognized that the boys had truly departed long ago, before they had considered to appreciate it.

They would receive no help. The others had followed Jack, choosing his play over the fire.

Sam and Eric understood this together and looked at one another, soulful, for a heart-beat hesitation.

"… I'll work it out," Eric volunteered his body over Sam's. "And carry it in the center."

 _But you hardly can,_  Sam held her arguments, because she knew Eric already understood.

Eric shoved the log from the half dirt, half sand and used his leverage to tip it up and over his shoulder. Sam took the lesser weight behind, her arms still recognizing work and seizing up in warning. They walked carefully and warily around the platform to the fire, seeing Ralph slumped in a fit and Piggy standing like a nervous bird.

"We can do without 'em. We'll be happier now, won't we?"

Piggy spoke as the twins rolled the log onto the fire and the sparks burst in the air and in Sam's shoulder. Piggy appeared aware of the missing as well.

"We can do all right on our own, can't we?"

Ralph said nothing, and the twins did not know if they should answer—they could not find the optimism to anyhow. As the silence lengthened and the log turned to smoke, Sam nursed her aching shoulder, the fresh pain woozying her anew. Eric equaled her expression of pain, and Piggy approached them, Ralph lost within himself.

"We ought to go to them trees," he whispered, motioning to the fruit grove. "And get some fruit. We could have some sort of feast."

His last spectacle flashed with dried-out hope. He comprehended how things were breaking up around him, and Sam and Eric finally fathomed it.

"… All right," Sam found herself longing to agree; she gave a smile, despite everything. "All right."

Sam decided to ignore her pain and loss and troubles and climb the fruit tree. She saw Eric's concern and formed another smile, which Eric knew deep in himself was forced and mostly insincere. Sam dropped the fruit from the highest branches and helped carry it back, Ralph remaining as he was and oblivious to any woe but his own. Piggy cleared his throat.

"Here you are."

Ripped from reflection, Ralph startled, only now seeing those around him.

"I thought," Piggy clarified, "perhaps, we ought to have a feast, kind of."

Ralph lingered quietly in astonishment. Sam, now feeling a little true brightness because her kindness was appreciated, grinned, Eric similarly positive about the tension weakening. They rested to Ralph's right, and Piggy to his left, presenting the gift of their labors together. With a birthday surprise sort of tremor Ralph took the fruit, his eyes wide in long-worn, almost forgotten childishness.

"Thanks," he said; not thinking it sufficient, he tried again. "Thanks!"

"Do all right on our own," Piggy savored in the hastily thrown together faith. "It's them that haven't no common sense. We'll make a little hot fire-"

Clearer in mind, Ralph remembered what he had put aside.

"Where's Simon?"

"I don't know."

Worried in the slightest, Ralph said, "You don't think he's climbing the mountain?"

Piggy covered his snort.

"He might be. He's cracked."

Ralph laughed at the familiarity of Simon's oddness and misunderstood good intentions. Sam had an idea where he was—in the jungle, the place he always entered and always left—supposing, however, if he had not told of his whereabouts he did not want to be found. So, she said nothing.

Instead, she upheld the good feeling she currently had, humming a bit as she ate her fruit. Eric saw how she and himself were safe for the moment and joined in the humming, stooping into soft giggles when they lost the tune. Sam put down her fruit and fished the coticule from her pocket, using the feeling of fun and dancing the bird around.

"I'm Eric!" She mocked his voice for the play, and in turn mocked her own. "I say—no one can play the violin better than me!"

"I've never said that!" Eric scowled without heat, then laughed. "And certainly not like that."

"Maybe you sound like that and don't know it."

Eric stuck out his tongue, and Sam laughed, and Ralph and Piggy took sport. They laughed, apart and together, at different and the same pain.

.

Joy died as the day continued on regardless. The four remaining could not leave the fire for long, nor was there much anywhere to go. Shifts to watch the fire were haphazard and almost unnecessary, although Piggy insisted upon them for the sake of order and half-true freedom. What else was there to have?

Sleep and sickness crept upon Sam like death. She was worn child-blanket thin and tired, but could not sleep, whether by misery or guilt to the others she did not know. The churning heat and pressure that signaled a storm left her with a headache and spoiled stomach. She sat huddled by the fire, the smoke whipping at her.

Eric tended to Sam's needs and brought her water and gathered her share of the wood. She desired not to be totally useless and aid him, but Eric insisted to her that she not, saying he was the big brother and it was his job to care for her. His love and niceties warmed Sam on the inside where she was growing cold.

Eventually, the heat and the sun and the smoke and the suffering became too much. Considerate and prideful enough, Sam stumbled away to the jungle, hiding herself behind a palm tree. Her ever loyal brother hurried after her as always, and found her retching into the creepers and sand. He rushed about and fetched her the last coconut shell saved with water, taking it to her as she soothed her violence. She at last coughed and stilled, better and worse than before.

"Here," Eric steadied the shell out. "Wash out your mouth."

Sam held the water but did not drink. Eric scooped sand over the lost breakfast and lunch, trying to rid of it like a bloody kerchief. Sam witnessed his haste and trembled. She swallowed the sour taste in her mouth, speaking around her sore throat.

"Eric... I can't eat fruit all the time. I'll die."

What she meant to say was that she could not continue to live as she did, on this island and forced to be strong as she was, or she would certainly die; yet, she did not know how to say these things, so did not. She but knew, in the simplest way, how she could not live off of fruit alone. It would kill her, either in mind or body.

"Don't say such awful things," Eric said more out of worry than harshness. "You'll live just fine."

Sam said nothing. She looked down to the water to see her reflection of a wild, beaten-up girl.

"Eric..."

"What?"

"That pig we killed tasted  _so good."_

The memory came like snowfall. The remembered flavor and the smell of the meat made Sam immediately aware of her empty stomach. The lack of accessible meat pained her, and she chilled down her spine.

"It was scrummy."

"It was rather good..." Eric agreed, willing himself not to dribble. Currently, Sam was his utmost concern.

"But, we don't have that now," Eric moved away from the tempting subject, urging the coconut shell closer to Sam's mouth. "Wash out your mouth."

Sam obliged, working herself back to reality. She tested her uneasy stomach by drinking the rest of the water, finding it steady enough.

"All right."

A terrible sound came from the jungle. It originated further down the lagoon, and crescendoed dangerously and awfully, like a tiger being disturbed from sleep. A million evil and horrific images of beasts and death came to Sam and Eric, and they drew together at once, frightened and pitifully aware. Eyes wide and alit with fear, they dared to peek around the tree.

A pack of painted people stood over the fire—over Ralph huddled up like a hunted animal. They wore nothing but streaks of red and white and black, save the tallest one, the one with hair as red as emotion, having a belt fastened around his waist to hold his knife.

Even with the paint, Sam and Eric had enough respect to individuality to know who they were—Jack, with his tall form and bright hair and thin limbs; Maurice, with his oddly shaped rib cage and mess of curls; and Robert, with eyes the color of Jack-O-Lantern lights. Others, too quick and far away to be identified, whooped and ran with burning sticks to the other side of the island.

"Well?"

Ralph spoke from his defensive position to the leader of the pack. Jack choicely and arrogantly ignored him, because he saw Ralph as little to him now, and spoke in a terrible, ringing voice.

"Listen, all of you!" Jack's voice pointed around to the platform, and the twins saw that somehow in the clamor and with his asthma, Piggy had rushed to protect the conch. "Me and my hunters, we're living along the beach by a flat rock. We hunt and feast and have fun. If you want to join my tribe come and see us. Perhaps I'll let you join. Perhaps not."

He checked to ensure that he alone was in control of his offer and generosity. In his paint he could play that role of choice; he could be the chief over all on the island. Sam and Eric drew further out, in awe and horrified like the first time he had worn the mask.

Jack rose his spear.

"Tonight we're having a feast. We've killed a pig and we've got meat. You can come and eat with us if you like."

Thunder cracked near the mountain and all dipped under its power. A littlun near the bathing pool screamed and began to cry. Jack regained his composure, out of mind to submit any longer. He snapped at Robert and Maurice.

"Go on—now!"

The two looked at each other uncomfortably. Jack lost his patience.

"Now!"

Half embarrassed, they raised their spears and spoke in unison.

"The chief has spoken."

The display made, they turned into the forest and disappeared.

Ralph stood from the ground, no longer attacked. Sam and Eric took that as a sign and came out from behind the tree, Eric supporting Sam. They spoke together the same feeling:

"I thought it was-"

"-and I was-"

"-scared."

They released their desperate hold on one another when the reached Ralph. Piggy walked to the edge of the platform, the conch cradled close to his large body.

"That was Jack and Maurice and Robert." Ralph saw who they were also. Then, hotly: "Aren't they having fun."

Quelled from his worry, Piggy coughed.

"I thought I was going to have asthma."

"Sucks to your ass-mar."

Ralph returned to his insult in the hope that it would make him feel better. It did not, and he made an unsettled noise, flipping the long hair from his face. Piggy came down from the platform with the conch.

"When I saw Jack I was sure he'd go for the conch. Can't think why."

They stared at the shell that had brought them together with the admiration and reverence Jack never had. He always spoke over it and tried to dismantle its leadership like he did with Ralph, who was the rightful chief. The conch had made it so. Piggy gave Ralph the crown to his authority.

Ralph held the conch tenderly, like he was afraid the sun-bleached surface would finally crack. Sam and Eric startled a bit as the littluns nestled around them, drawn to the known power of the conch. Ralph saw them all and shook his head.

"Not here."

He motioned to the platform. They understood and climbed to the fallen lines of trees. Ralph stood in the center, burdened and somber and with his fair hair hopelessly dirty.

"Sit down all of you," Ralph ordered it, and they obeyed. Sam and Eric sat on a log with Piggy—the last biggun.

"They raided us for fire," Ralph continued. "They're having fun. But the-"

Bewilderment crossed his face as he trailed off. He paused, and swallowed, trying to return to the subject.

"But the-"

The thought would not return. He swallowed again, and moved the hair that had fallen in his eyes. He gripped the conch closer and found what he had lost.

"But the... oh... the fire! Of course, the fire!"

He started to laugh and regained himself. Only the twins and Piggy recognized Ralph's fragile line of thought without Jack to antagonize him. It did not bother them—not yet.

"The fire's the most important thing. Without the fire we can't be rescued. I'd like to put on war-paint and be a savage. But we must keep the fire burning. The fire's the most important thing on the island, because, because-"

He faltered anew. The resulting silence hung thick, and Piggy saved it, whispering:

"Rescue."

"Oh yes!" Ralph agreed, and continued his speech. "Without the fire we can't be rescued. So we must stay by the fire and make smoke."

Ralph stopped because there was nothing else to say—no Jack to input his disapproval. Any brilliance in the speech was lost to the silence. Eric took it as an opportunity to do something.

Eric held out his arms for the conch. Surprised, but eager to fulfill the meeting, Ralph relinquished the shell. Eric hesitated a second longer to look at Sam, and she knew exactly what he was going to do. She nodded at him before he spoke. They knew, or thought so, what had to be done for the sake of themselves.

"I think we should go to the feast."

Ralph and Piggy looked to Eric in shock at his betrayal. To clarify his point and remaining loyalty, he persisted, looking at Sam in love as he did.

"We cannot eat fruit all the time," he repeated what she has said to him. "And when we go, we can tell them that the fire's hard on all of us, that we cannot keep it up alone. We can tell them their hunting must be jolly good fun, but-"

"Rescue," Sam put her hand on the conch. Eric smiled at her as she came to his aid communicating their needs to the group. They put their shoulders together, one helping the other.

"It must be fun, yes," Sam said. "Plus, he's invited us-"

"-to the feast-"

"-meat-"

"-crackling-"

"-we can do with some meat-"

Ralph held up his hand as the meeting began to wallow in the idea. He gave Sam and Eric a sharp look, begging the question:

"Why shouldn't we get our own meat?"

The twins stared at him, then at each other. Eric took the initiative, as the eldest and with less on his pride.

"We don't want to go in the jungle."

Ralph flinched at the truth and the fear he must accept. Frustrated, he said:

"He—you know—goes."

"Yes, but he's a hunter-"

Sam hesitated in her doubt. No, it wasn't just that he was a hunter, he was more than that, because she had hunted and she was afraid. She frowned, trying to put words to the feeling she had when she ran through the creepers after the boar and forgot about the beast.

"He paints himself. He hunts, they all hunt. They're different. They don't feel hunted."

Ralph watched her solemnly. The crashing storm sang in the clouds, and Sam shivered at the situation, moving her hand over Eric's on the conch. Piggy spoke weakly from the other end of the log.

"Meat-"

The idea was too strong. The littluns dribbled and whined at the thought, while Ralph struggled not to do the same. He viewed Sam and Eric sitting so close, wondering if it was really their fault.

.

Sam and Eric understood the human weakness of temptation. They had sat long hours in Sunday School hearing about it—about the taking of fruit off the tree of desire, and how it had ruined humankind. However, in the true nature of hunger, as they walked to the feast they did not think of the lessons in their Christian upbringing. They thought only of the meat and how they were not strong enough to refuse it.

The sky crackled above them, and Sam's headache returned. The storm had been festering and growling in the heavens all day, but seemed intent not to break for as long as possible, almost like it wanted to torment the poor humans below by aggravating their fear. Dark clouds continued to gather as the twins reached the feast.

The party sat on a shelf over the sea. Soft, loose sand and grass piled atop the rock like sugar. The fire resided in the center, the meat haphazardly sliced and roasted on splits over it. Some meat already prepared cooled on leaves at Jack's feet.

The boy sat lavishly painted on a log dragged from the jungle. He acknowledged the twins' approach, inclining his head and eyeing them with some look neither could name. They took their meat quickly, and without a submissive gesture like the other boys had made, and this caused Jack to grow sharp. He glared at Sam and Eric as they walked away to sit in the grass, and only Eric took notice of it. He wished to return the meanness, but dared not to—not to the one hidden from shame and responsibility behind his mask. They had come for the meat, not for Jack, and Jack realized that now.

The brother and sister sat huddled as one, eating their meat until they were satisfied. Eric braved to get a coconut shell of water while a group of others went. They shared the water, and then took to gnawing on the bones of the kill as the sun started to set. When they thought it best to return to Ralph, the party fell silent. Sam and Eric looked up as they all did.

Ralph and Piggy stood on the edge of the grass. Jack watched them where they stood, small and only two, while he sat on a log over the whole. Jack and Ralph stared at one another in the trembling silence until Ralph could not bear to view the painted savage any longer and turned away to Sam and Eric. The look he gave made Sam think he was giving her some sort of hypocritical scolding. She dropped her bone under his gaze and giggled, trying to convey that he was just as bad as the rest of them.

Ralph smiled at her and whispered to Piggy, the boys succumbing to giggles in light of the situation like she had. They shook themselves free of the soft sand and advanced to be part of the group.

The unity did not last. Jack, urging his new dominance, pointed with his spear.

"Take them some meat."

A pair of littluns rushed to grant the order. Ralph and Piggy nodded thankfully at the littluns and ravaged the meat, eating with the same delight as everyone had. The thunder crashed again before Jack spoke.

"Has everybody eaten as much as they want?"

The sow they had killed was large and meat remained on the leaves at his feet. Piggy went for more, and Jack's tone changed.

"Has everybody eaten as much as they want?"

Piggy stopped at his voice. It was a warning, not an offer, and Piggy slinked back to Ralph as Jack finally stood from the log. He walked around the platform of grass, examining the group and Ralph and Piggy with his eyes lined in paint. His shadow followed him, long and malicious, as he walked, reminding all of the terrible night to come.

He stopped.

"Give me a drink."

A red-painted littlun brought him a shell as quickly as he commanded. He made a show with the drink, displaying his arm and the power to mandate behind it. Ralph chose to ignore the gesture, instead watching the fire as he ate. The tension quivered with the storm, and Sam rubbed her forehead under her long hair.

"All sit down."

It was unfair to Sam and Eric because they were already sitting. But, the others who were not scrambled about, finding a place to fall in the grass. Ralph and Piggy remained as they were, along the edge and not quite within Jack's power to order them.

Jack turned his attention to the pack of dirty and painted little boys. He moved his mask for them to see, waving his spear at the lot of them.

"Who's going to join my tribe?"

Now Eric dropped his bone. He glanced at Sam a little fearfully as Ralph jerked forward, intent and irritated.

"I gave you food." Jack pointed to the fire. "And my hunters will protect you from the beast. Who will join my tribe?"

Sam and Eric scooted deeper into the growing darkness to avoid the sparks of two clashing spirits.

"I'm chief, because you chose me!" Ralph reminded them all torridly. "And we were going to keep the fire going. Now you run after food-"

"You ran yourself! Look at that bone in your hands!" Jack accused.

Ralph faced him fully, flushed. He made a point by throwing down the idiot bone and speaking darkly.

"I said you were hunters. That was your job."

Jack sneered and disregarded him. He met the others.

"Who'll join my tribe and have fun?"

"I'm chief!" Ralph shouted, and thunder boomed. "And what about the fire? And I've got the conch-"

"You haven't got it with you. You left it behind," Jack mocked him, the king who needed a crown to rule. "See, clever? And the conch doesn't count at this end of the island-"

"The conch counts here too, and all over the island," Ralph rumbled as the sky did.

Jack confronted him, furiously, "What are you going to do about it then?"

Ralph's heat flickered. He looked over the boys, and when he reached Sam and Eric they gave him expressions of hope and encouragement, although he could not see them in the dark. He found Piggy nearest him, adrift and uncertain. Piggy pushed the point all had wanted, once, on the first day.

"The fire—rescue."

Jack overshadowed him with his persistence, "Who'll join my tribe?"

Finally, the group submitted and raised their hands.

"I will."

"Me."

"I will."

Sam touched Eric's arm and dipped him near.

"I think we ought to go."

He nodded.

"Yes-"

"I'll blow the conch!" Ralph grew to a peak, and the storm hesitated. "And call an assembly!"

Jack rose to his full height, a dark and sure force over the night.

"We shan't hear it."

Lighting broke the sky and thunder echoed over the sea. The water twisted and tore at itself, the clouds opening the cold rain that had waited all day. Some of the littluns screamed in fear, and the twins had an animalistic need to draw closer to the fire and safety. They quaked together.

"Going to be a storm," Ralph said over the noise, "and you'll have rain like when we dropped here. Who's clever now? Where are your shelters? What are you going to do about that?"

Jack became uneasy as the others did, challenged by sense. They all rustled about, wary, by the fire, shivering at the rain and knowing of the dangers of the storm. The littluns ran about in hysteria, and Sam and Eric bowed into the comfort of each other. Jack lept up before the fire, determined to gain control.

"Do our dance! Come on! Dance!"

In groups there is safety, and in disillusion there is certainty. The twins saw this as the boys hurried to form a ring, brandishing spears and clubs of wood. They saw that they were acting out the hunt of the pig with Roger as the animal, charging and grunting on all fours. When the thunder sounded again, the hunters paid it no mind, and Sam and Eric had a sudden desire to be as assured and secure as those playing in the dance. They ran and gathered roasting splits and joined in the dance as one, part of the mania and enchantment of savagery.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

Roger left the center and became a part of the dance, part of the song of feet and voices to drive the beast away. Sam and Eric came around in turn and saw Ralph and Piggy, humming with energy as they divulged themselves in the movement. The thunder sounded and the group beat it away with their arms, waving away the rain and crying the death to what they so feared.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

Lighting cut the sky and struck the ocean, the group shrieking as they celebrated in the aftermath of its awful power.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

Terrified littluns ran screaming about. They stumbled into the forest and away from the ocean's rising noise, one running through the circle and breaking it into a horseshoe. The dance continued on nevertheless.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

A dark and stumbling and crouched shape retracted from the forest. It trembled like an evil, and in the lightning flash was still dark and terrible. It sat up to move, and the motion was like some sort of nightmare.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

The horseshoe absorbed the shape. The noise of the sky and the hunters rose to impossible and unbearable levels, the beast within its torture faltering and surrendering to a small and howling mass. It realized it was being hunted.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

The group moved in as one. The beast shrieked as the sticks beat down on it, wittering and fighting and crying in pain. Red tossed about the sand.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"_

Sam remembered who she was when she stuck her stick between something hard on the beast and it screamed in reaction to only her doing. Desperate, bloody, small, the beast rived itself from Sam's spear and tumbled through the hideous circle, dragging itself out of pure will to the lip of the shelf. The circle followed it, but Sam did not.

" _Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him!"_

The beast released the most horrifying noise Sam had heard in all her life. It carried over the wind whipping from the mountain, over the sound of the sea, over the cry of the hunters: the last, heaving plea from a dying animal.

And the beast tumbled down, falling to the beach below.

And Sam had but one thought: Eric.

"Eric!" Sam shouted into the terror. "Eric! Eric!  _Eric!"_

She called to him in a distressed, dire way she never had before. For the first time in all her years, in all theirs, she voiced her absolute need of his big brother protection—of him and what he allowed her to be.

She was weak. She was weak and she admitted it.

Eric stopped and turned out of sheer instinct. In the sound of the storm and the hunt her cry was weak, and if he were not in-tuned to hear it he would not have. He saw Sam standing far away, back against the jungle, her silhouette too known to be dismissed. He saw her, and realized he was alone, and she was alone, and they both had made it that way. Eric dropped his spear and ran from the group racing towards the beach.

"Sam!"

He reached her as a form floated over them. They looked up and saw the great shadow of the beast from the mountain, its wings wide and its threat forever there, forever a force. Screams encircled them as boys from the beach ran every which way, their fear of the beast forever with them and forever controlling.

The beast dipped down. Sam and Eric ran straight into the forest.

Sam hit her head on a branch and crashed into the underbrush. She sat up almost immediately, Eric likewise as quick and pulling her to stand. He asked in a yell if she was all right; she did not answer, taking Eric instead to run into the darkness of uncertain terrors instead of the darkness of know ones. She did not know what else to do.

As they ran, the thought of the small beast came to her. She remembered its scream and realized what it said, who he had pleaded to.

Simon had cried out for his mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tfw you kill the only boy who has paid attention to you aside from your brother.


End file.
